2 2 J 2 I ~ Jwj ■J ^-,r> -g- • ** *• aak.* '- ' - 7- j , ;S3< T* « ^ ^ i 4. 4 ?? *• ^ 3 S3 23 r 35 Mar -j "t-~f ~ 1 tt a: -7 -r "> -*-t C 3-5 3 7 753! 7 J,3, 3 5 Xp 4 3SIS3S3 33 *; 5 5 J -- — ^ .. J - -4.3- j- IJ -i -J -* _>4V - * —4 — • — — » *•» — * — J —3' —I — J —| - «'. — » -2 -^* — 4_ — ' wr — ♦• W W -w l' - „,_ _» 7 7 '. p S 34 3 5 4 3 7 2 -. -?3-? ip -: j .: 34' x? - p 5 3 p j 4j5::4 35 2J24 .11: 2 - 2 * -;. 3 7 - #5 - -; pP 5 p --Sg p 5*? p 2 ? 2 3 1 4 5 ? |i 3 ^ .-j . ; . 3 4i . 3 2 3 - 5 ,’ - d 1 4 4 4 5 7 3 p 4 2 p *15 &fc?©-£32;3 ibra^ -.. » ' •■* ~ -* J j* C-j -■» - j -J >-~ • ■* . - -j 3-, -2 •• *32 33*7 • 7 'a2Tfi32 b ^3”^ i 5 ^ 1 -^ .. J"*"? " ■ ' ' . j - 4 - : — *• • _.* XpMppjri 3 2 3 p 2 J i 2 2 7 -; »j3 _j -1 23.23x3 2j 23 43W9 ES 3K3rc«3 ’n:r -pp pppp 23 ,3 PP 3-? 34 55.7 4 3:4 73 -4 -i-l-. 5 5 3 535:55:344 3 4 ;*5 ? 4 W — 4 - .r 34 tV-J *7 J r. — , _> - — — .i _ -J ^ ii — -* “7 ~r '•» ■? 7-iii-*,i-J ;i 4£ -iW 3- 4-w jS-XiT'- ii-7 - - - 5f - ■*- 4rtr -a - - — j _ 7 " - - 7 ,343-4.' 3T-4 --j - -» -j -* - *H‘r* t - 3 3 3 4 :* ". 2 2 2 2 3 2 2 .-'- : id2i~- •2 — r -A -• -J »J -• — ^ — — - -» — » --^ — * — • #J ■* ->3i. 4» W- —r-.J. P— W W -i •• J 39- ? 3 - 34 34- 3p: :4: 5 •'•3^3 -’.34 j 4 .teof 2 4 .43 .: j -4 ^ A * J 1 -j jj.j-.j- ;a 4j-4 ;4.t4 34.3 4 _ 3^. .a--, -j -i3i,. ■ -. -1 — j -4 4 -4 j — 3 — -~i 4-4^ -3 3— . . i -r j —t -;-4«* w -i -3 , J -uv 4 -£31 J. ^ .j -i _ XjW 3-4 -■ , : 3 *3 r- - - -I 'q ■ -j«-> 3 -3- i ..1433- . .? .: 7 4 - : 7 : 4 7 ^.144 J 3 3 443 4:33 5^3, ■~T~* t** 7 -^r23 4 miMii j .. > - , a.~;~ 3i;33r3i33:44. EJ 35, 3 ^3 ^3 23?3 3 ^3 ?33 J3 3 3 2223 3 3254 33 ru S7i j ■ js 343. 333-33 7 3343437 a Sm? 3333. !33 333343433343^ - 4-, 11 ; '3 333 43-34333433 7 43 ,37.3 i3 3. 3^34 34343^323^?2^35 j 43 434343 434333 — , -> -s — '» ^ -; 343:3::-3 p -* •> ■- ^33343434343, t- — 3 i “ ; - ^ frji 7. 43 >3^3 73 4 3 ‘ '43 444343 -,-V-, -■ — -J-, — 3 ' H -* — -J • ^1-y -3 ... ^ _ 3 t-433 _ -, ^ J.3 434343^3 J7-* % -'*iy j- T — -J— •-» ^‘7 - — - ^ - -* -7 -- - -^>5 4r-* ^ 44 *3^ 4.3 iT.w -i ^ 3.^:5 i j -j}5& z '4 “>- ^ J ^ ~y ~r -3 ^ ^ *2. i. Z$ 'f^r. 3 *1 -* 37 :424 3 4.3 7 343437:3 4344.44 4 J -v J ^ — 5 , -J -. 3 -. — - ,. — 7 ^4 . « j 3 w- 3— , 3 ^ --* -^f-3 . 3-3 — — , .7 J , -3- J , ~i - 3-, _i 3 , J, 3 :, -4 Ji. 3 - 3^ 3 - j - .J. „ -i , J~, 3^3 , 3-.2l~ 3 , 3 .. 3 , j — » , j _ 3 34343 434 .17 3-7 34 3 43 ^4 43 4 ^447 753 4 3 4341 - J 434>J3 -3 4^4343 4.7-7 3^3^343 7 3^3 ^3 43^3^3^34 3^3 ^3 43 ?3 5 3 2j 5^4 3 -■ 4: -■■-•••■ v - ;■ : 4: --4 -4-: :.-4 • '.• . .4.:: ;:.: .:::;. ^4*5^74 34 343 43 ,347^ 3434^4 - 4 3^34 J4.34j434 3^3 43 43 432323432 3?3 34. '34 3-4 3^4 13 J ‘ 3 5 3 -3 -3 - 4434 lia.-j'-ji J-T4 4 3434 ^3^744-432 f3 55 ?3 5^25234.32 34i43 4.7434t-43 43 434343 37. ■333 -;---; - ^ •• «*• J •31 acsc 3i^T3 37 — . ,-» -i a .*. ^ -, -i , _; — ^ 3 4 3 '3 '3~‘","'34 r 3 4 343f 1 :-- -7 - Mfipli • •- • -t 4 : - -»-, j.— .t . ’ 34-3 4344 334 34 3 3 '1*3' 7 "3 ~ -3,;3 7 7 434 3 2 r ^5 3 .,. 3_3-_ : 4.343 7 3 4 343744 r-:-: ■73477 33 17 : 43 2->- - - : ^3.73.: 3.-: 34 " 4 7717 7 : : -4 ' ' - - :;:• ,:4;:-j;if: •■ >. ' - - - - : •' -• . - - ■ ;;:_ f 3^3 ?3 ^ 343^3 7 3 2 3 4' ? 33 3 3^34i 43-4 3 2 U 4 7 “ " 3 n ^4 71 3 5“n>3 -5 -» -• ~r* •-> 3iJ 2 2354 3. 5-3 ^ 3 723 3 3»‘ 3*7 *3^ >|a| :45^J r •: , Spkimi 13 3 3 j 3 3 2 3 2 3.5^4 5 3 .7 3 3 ., -7 3343737J47 433723 1333733.33 3 5 1^123 35 I 3 33 3 33. . J *333 325252: — • -r — * j 7 4 — / - . 4 _. — j-*—!-, j! 17 — 3-, - ,3 , J..-.iJ ,3- J_ 3 ->-v ji.-3-j -, -J - - , — j -v^K— - 33 -v 3 43473-3:34 7J-3-- 2535* 173 473 3-73 •34 IS 1 .j , ^ . ii. 4 3 4 3.2 .3-^3 343 33 5533*I33?f5fgpJ3?3: 3_v^}£T-^r _, 3 -^3^ If 7.4'n3- -3 733 23if2lH?li- -4 '3-.TJ7 - j - -. 4 ; 2 3 4 ;; 2 3 4 3 43 4 .a. .T 3 1?34-J:73 23:7323 3 — ^ • -2 c^ -w - 34525242b :3 _ >a:;i j,js , _• ., -J ' 37 33 ■?3 • - : . -‘ - -• - - - . . 43 7 3 717343434 '•7 7 3 3' 4 r- 4;j .> -. _ - - - _ - 1 321^373^3- ■* 1 J 1 - 1 -2,- — , — ~i ~f y z j ~. 4 1 4 17 377 17373 _ J _ . j ->-4. , 1 ' 7 4 3. 17 3 4 -l4 12343737 34 J7 if If i?3f ff if 7 ? 1 75 fifif if 5 34 7 2 U 24 4 1 3 3 -P 4 3 ?-?2 3 2b 23-2 J 3 4 3 3-3 7 .7 4 3 3 3 7 4 4f. 2j 4 3 7 3 , . - ... - . - -j a3fi = j3i?if?i5?f^- — ^3f3 far .7 f r f af 3 r j f r r r f 3 f nf 3 r : 4 J-.j::--c 4^Jr j,j . j . j7J ij, J_ j .3^3^ J" 3_, _i _ 3 ' J " 3 ^ J J IT 2 ~J 2 ' 3 J 3 3 ^ ~i 3 r -5 f ■» J-r — . J-- - -. _> -1 1 4 3 2 j 2 .i2j : : 43 7 j2 3 r: 4x7 37 1 7 7 sir j r ^ -i - i4i4i2 52i3 44 2734 p 2^2 4 4i2i43437 3434i23’J • •--•'4 4 3. - ,--- 3 234143272.3234 74 1452^2.7 437i3i2i4i2-i.2 375^5 252712^2^2 4 1332--* 7 7 4 3 7.1 2i 2 b 2 li i 2 :i4 J 2 34 3t2tj2i yi24 | i ||M5|g7j3f52335| |H3b|a2Si|i32 7 i2 ^ J2 n 2 525232 32>252j2i 25?3^ 3 1573 44: 3 737371 4X4,3434 54:3 ^•'*4^3 • 3 3 .7373 -. -i — i, _r -. -i J .3 43 7 !-47J47i J-; -1 .v J- j.^ _> p2V252;|4^4 '34 -;r.:7-:3;- 3 2:37 -^2 3 4-l2 3 434 -7 -7' -- 7 3-73 - -3 j 3 3 ?22 3 4 3 4 44 "7 73 25 4 b?3 ?3 2 3 2 3 4 3 43 4 3 73 737 773 .7 xJ3^3 , a _ .7 7 3 r 3 3 3 3 3 4 7 7 3 7 3 4 3 3 7 _ — 3 , - -. 7 •- * *, •• ~ — 1 — j , . — J _ 34Jj2‘72:'I2:j^4.437343437s3'' ^ -A-. ^ •« U*i ^ -% -* -* •^•*7 “7 4 742^44 233.3244543*, _^2 42 3 £52jr44 2 3 2-*^ 223 2- - ^ 37“ 73,37 ;.,37f ,7,7, J,lr,./ , J 7 7 — -»r, - 4-3 .3 33 7 4-r4J4J •74 7: 4^7 3-32L3 XJZZTSZ 3 7523 4:i4-j7l2 -, I, j , 3 , ^ . -> 434343 73 35 , 13. J- , -I.' 1-,-. — , - - , .J- 34 ralSHKXa-4 -i S, '343 3 33373: a-J 31317' .27 TJ-T sea 4323 23saaf 33T 343 434 r 1 -* —i -• J- V -rf -i. -i 3,3-, 2 -. 3~. 3~, 3 — • —/ — * j _ J-rl 23 23 43 2-54x23 2b 2 43 ■ T -*-« a ^j2?23. !32b4 4*4 iff* 33 ■ - — - _ .3234343 1 _ 3 , 3 -. J , -s j 3 - 1 , 7 , . J ...,*— 1 ^-.— - - -j ^7‘3?b732ir343437l734J434323 , . _ 1 7b 7 ‘J 732 2 3 ?2 7-? 3 25232 1 7.373 4 :»4 5 7 j , J 7 . 7 ^p33?i2ffir j::., : 7 * 7 .: : 173.7.7714 7 4 r p 4 ■" 3 -A ? -2 2.4 |bf f? f?3 2 J 3 3 £3 25 2-171 742 i 3 37 3 J 57 _ _ _ . : : :.: ’ : .: v : : : - -* : .1 '. -' 3,_ 1b 4- — - — 1‘taefM^F - 43 -, 3 4 i*!j»» 1 ?■* — - 7 — — -J • -* — - — -* • -‘•-j j - - . - - • . • _ 7 2 7 . 7 • ; l2'i J 3 4 343-, 3 -, 33 2. 171,3717 ' - 3_ 3 ^ .3 ~ 1 - , 3_ 3-j3 -, 3 - 3, - , 3 , 3-, J , 2 .1 - 7 — -! -r,t* -- , • . *t — J , . i. la J ,/_ jvJ- • -2 . -» -. 1 J - If i3^ 1 J 7 3 3 ... ■ . . : - r 3. : 3 23 4 j:j - — — — -i — '-7 -» 7 -* -7 *7 -#ri J43 ^ - - J *rJ - 1 ifififir x-j 325252b 43 2x25 ' 423 *-=■ j.^ a 4 lf73 73 -143434343 '343 ^ ,-.,3 7-pp ? i?'S3 ^3 4 3 i 35 32^53 rip ?i p 3 1> 3 j 7 3 3 J 4 J 4 J^J 4 3., : ? 743 2 i= if ifff if if ifif iff f if pp ^ -5!^ -a rjv ^ -3-i f 1 f i PsJ-,Jl5 7 3 35 — i- #2i 23 353 i4l 3sS 4 34 1: ■1 4 .. 51 7 j:j v -1 - 4 I 7 $ 3pp-lpp, .3 2j ri3! f 3 2 J p p p 2 1 p 3 1 :p : if i^fif f 4f if if if if i4fp , 3^* 3^* Jw J*^ J *7 J ’ *> — « Jp* P . .41 5 J-| 4 4 ^ ^ y H 23 7 71?32.7 :j3 3 3 3 34 : - • ppp3-3 ;fu, 1 .7 3 3 p53 57 43 3 3 53 3 • p ^ 1 p p ^ 3 3 3 4 53i2i^ipp.pp7. - 5i?ififi?i4--5: ^535 43415 5r j 7 35 4143 53 5 .3 443 7.JS 3.2 rf-1- n 7j ■ 53 - 1-; — -4 r ^ -' » — .- -» 3 *Ti n J - J-v J 5 J ^ J ^ • b-* -• •> 2 -r ^ *i 3-^ -J- J4 J-| J - 2 c 144 '3l2l?l3l5l23 ^ 3" 2 34 3 4:p 343?3 234j2i2i2 j^32i23- 2 2i23 -47:4 ?3p 3pp3.J3'^ 3 .141 53 53 .p43p2“432b ppp?!?-3^- y -. -»- — -,3 — 3-* iP P p 32H53 > 3 4i2xpp^ ■* i 2 J 2i2^P.5is , 3-- 3.7 -I 434 3 , _ - -■• f -•' j ^ j 3i 3i4i - 5 .j 44 ., .: 43 554X4 2p53-p5 32543 Pipppp^.. 1 5 J p4lp.735‘ , j3?3?:5,- T3 3-p4 324 p2l 3 53 p2 323 41. 3ppppp . , l.ia ‘. jf 3 f 3-<:r i-Tzaz -J -T > 1 3 1 -f - 3- J X23TX 35343§343535b?35343 2a 73.21 7j?3 ter -its* 3 ' 5 1.5 .1 44 .. . j— - - - -*■ , 5 4414 54 l-3? *1 J' Glass Book . ■ ' , ■ . . . < * *> l A T AUGUSTUS CARP, Esq. cT^yself at the aye of 2J fom a ffiotoyrayk now tn the^ possession, of tf)e (feih'oyd Sinjtorj Tllfe^ AUGUSTUS CARP, Esq. By HIMSELF BEING THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A REALLY GOOD MAN With Illustrations by ROBIN BOSTON & NEW YORK HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY Printed in Great Britain 3 3 A A 3 (a * DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF MY DEAR FATHER AUGUSTUS CARP OF CAMBERWELL CONTENTS CHAPTER I PAGE No apology for writing this book. An imperative duty under present conditions. Description of my parents and their personal appearances. Description of Mon Repos, Angela Gardens. Long anxiety prior to my birth. Intense joy when at last this takes place. My father’s decision as to my Xtian name. Early selection of my first godfather . . . i CHAPTER II Trials of my infancy. Varieties of indigestion. I suffer from a local erythema. Instance of my father’s unselfishness. Difficulty in providing a second godfather. Unexpected solution of the problem. The ceremony of my baptism. A narrow escape. Was it culpable carelessness ? My father transfers his worship to St. James- the-Lesser-Still, Peckham Rye . 9 CHAPTER III My parents’ studies in the upbringing of children. A successful instance of non- vaccination. Further example of my father’s consideration for others. My mother’s ill-health. My parents engage a char¬ woman. Her appearance and character. Physical characteristics of her son. Deplorable social result of the war. Continued presumption of char- vii Vlll CONTENTS woman's son. I rebuff him. Affection for grey rabbit. Charwoman's son’s cannon and the use made of it by him. Scenes of violence, and inter¬ vention of my father. Intervention of charwoman. A lethargic vicar. Was he also immoral ? My father transfers his worship to St. James- the-Least-of- All. CHAPTER IV Further years of boyhood and additional crosses. Pro¬ gress in study and music. I excel at the game of Nuts in May. I am to go to Hopkinson House School. But Providence again intervenes. I be¬ come a victim of the ring- worm. Devastating effect of an ointment. Mr. Balfour Whey and his sons. A brutal County Court judge. But my father obtains damages ..... CHAPTER V First experiences at Hopkinson House School. It is amongst the masters that I hope to find spiritual companionship. I do not do so. Apology of Mr. Muglington. I am struck by a football. Subse¬ quent apology of Mr. Beerthorpe. Degraded habits of my fellow-scholars. A fearful discovery and its sequel. Amazing ineptitude of Mr. Lorton. Con¬ certed assault upon my person. I am rescued by my father, who procures a public apology CHAPTER VI Reasons for remaining at Hopkinson House School. I pass from boyhood to early young manhood. Expeditions both urban and rural in the company of my dear father. An excellent and little-known diversion. Youthful adventures by sea and land. But what is to be my career on leaving school? CONTENTS IX PAGE Various alternatives prayerfully considered. A vision is vouchsafed to us by Providence. A com¬ mercial Xtian. My first razor 60 CHAPTER VII A further vision is vouchsafed to us by Providence. Mr. Chrysostom Lorton and the sources of his wealth. The debt owed to me by Mr. Septimus Lorton. Interview with Mr. and Mrs. Septimus Lorton. Mr. Septimus Lorton 's disgraceful attitude. My father is compelled to be frank with him. What I discovered in Greenwich Park 73 CHAPTER VIII Second interview with Mr. Septimus Lorton. But now the tables are turned. A pitiful exhibition. My father demands guarantees. He will write a letter to Mrs. Chrysostom Lorton. My father’s ordeal. When it was dark ...... 89 CHAPTER IX Effect upon my father of his disclosure. My Xtian confidence in journeying to Enfield. Paternoster Towers and its mistress. Unfortunate detachment of my posterior trouser buttons. Triumphant suc¬ cess of my interview. A kindly parlourmaid and her male friend. I secure a position under Mr. Chrysostom Lorton. Melancholy death of Silas Whey ........ 95 CHAPTER X Precautionary measures on entering commercial life. I join the N.S.L. and the S.P.S.D.T. A crying need in the conduct of prayer-meetings. I join the A .D.S. U. CONTENTS PAGE Personal appearance of Ezekiel Stool. Personal appearance of his five sisters. Predicament of Ezekiel Stool on the fifth of November. A timely instance of presence of mind. I am invited to a meal at the Stools’ residence. A foreshadowing of sinister events . . . . . . .hi CHAPTER XI Design for my grandfather’s tomb. Death and inter¬ ment of Mrs. Emily Smith and the aunt that had stood with my mother’s mother at the bottom of the stairs. Effect upon my father’s health. Alexander Carkeek and his sons. Arrival home from the Stools. First tidings of the new lectern. My father’s interview with the vicar. Curious instance of transposition of consonants. My father rehearses his denunciation. Arrival of Simeon Whey. My father repeats his denunciation . 125 CHAPTER XII Breakfast finds us calm but grave. My mother is allowed to accompany us to church. My father’s clothing and general demeanour. Remarks of Simeon Whey on my father’s hat. First impres¬ sions of the new lectern. Unmistakable evidences of guilt. The vicar’s feeble apologia. A devilish device and its disastrous results. I race with Corkran for half a crown. My poor father is three times dropped. . . . . . . .144 CHAPTER XIII Description of the injuries sustained by my father. A supremely difficult medical problem. Legal assist¬ ance of Mr. Balfour Whey. Infamous decisions and public comments. A quiet church and obliging CONTENTS xi PAGE clergy. Surprising character-growth of Ezekiel. A distasteful proposition generously put forward. Disgusting behaviour of a show-room manager . 158 CHAPTER XIV Person and character of Mr. Archibald Maidstone. Irreverent attitude towards the firm’s publications. Would-be laxity of two constables. Their tardy performance of an obvious duty. Deplorable con¬ dition of my Sunday trousers. Their effect on Miss Botterill and Mr. Chrysostom Lorton. The arrival and influence of the Reverend Eugene Cake. Mr. Maidstone is dismissed and I succeed him. Com¬ plete discomfiture of his three elder children . .170 CHAPTER XV Happy years. A typical day. Simeon Whey is at last ordained. His first sermon at St. Sepulchre’s, Balham. Intensive campaign of the A.D.S.U. I meet Miss Moonbeam and call her Mary. Affecting appeal not to leave her in darkness. I promise not to do so. A face to lean on. Will I come again? Adventure on the stage of the Empresses Theatre . 185 CHAPTER XVI Disappointing attitude of Ezekiel. Suggested nuptials of Miss Moonbeam. An occasion for tact and post¬ ponement. I am obliged to write a letter. Ezekiel accompanies me to the Empresses Theatre. We are a little taken back by the numbers to be rescued. An apparently delightful beverage. I address Miss Moonbeam’s friends on the subject of temperance. Ezekiel addresses them on the evils of the drama. We arrange a meeting. Description of meeting . 204 CONTENTS xii CHAPTER XVII PAGE Profound depression subsequent to port-poisoning. An iniquitous plot and its consequences. Insubordina¬ tion of Miss Botterill. I retire from the firm of Mr. Chrysostom Lorton. A crushing rejoinder and its repetition. Second journey to Enfield. Trans¬ formation of Mrs. Chrysostom’s boudoir. Un¬ expected repentance of Mrs. Chrysostom. Unfor¬ tunate results of this for myself. Fruitless termina- of interview ....... 234 CHAPTER XVIII Physical reaction following my interview with Mrs. Chrysostom. Reception of a wreath from the Maidstones. Moving excerpt from Simeon’s diary. I decide to marry one of Ezekiel’s sisters. Inter¬ view with Ezekiel and his deplorable language. Tact is selected to become my bride. Tragic return to Mon Repos. I fall unconscious, parallel to my father ........ 252 CHAPTER XIX Commencement of my life’s afternoon. My father’s eight sisters-in-law return to Wales. Astounding attitude of my mother. Physical effect thereof on myself. I move to Stoke Newington. Further parochial activities. Simeon Whey obtains a living. I move to Hornsey and become a Churchwarden. Complete decline of Ezekiel Stool. Birth of my son. A happy augury ..... 264 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS TO FACE PAGE myself at the age of twenty-one . Frontispiece (From a photograph now in the possession of the Reverend Simeon Whey.) MY DEAR FATHER IN HIS PRIME .... 28 (Taken from a group of sidesmen of St. James -the-Less.) FROM A PORTRAIT OF THE AUNT WHO STOOD WITH MY MOTHER’S MOTHER AT THE FOOT OF THE STAIRS . 40 MR. CHRYSOSTOM LORTON ..... I08 ALEXANDER CARKEEK AND HIS TWO SONS . . 130 EZEKIEL STOOL ....... l68 (Drawn from a portrait once in the possession of the A.D.S.U.) THE REV. SIMEON WHEY ...... 192 (From a photograph in my possession.) THE TWIN SISTERS OF EZEKIEL STOOL . . *256 (The right-hand one became my wife.) CHAPTER I No apology for writing this book. An imperative duty under present conditions. Description of my parents and their personal appearances. Description of Mon Repos, Angela Gardens. Long anxiety prior to my birth. Intense joy when at last this takes place. My father’s decision as to my Xtian name. Early selection of my first godfather. It is customary, I have noticed, in publishing an autobiography to preface it with some sort of apology. But there are times, and surely the present is one of them, when to do so is mani¬ festly unnecessary. In an age when every standard of decent conduct has either been torn down or is threatened with destruction; when every newspaper is daily reporting scenes of violence, divorce, and arson ; when quite young girls smoke cigarettes and even, I am assured, sometimes cigars; when mature women, the mothers of unhappy children, enter the sea in one-piece bathing-costumes ; and when married men, the heads of households, prefer the flicker of the cinematograph to the Athanasian Creed — then it is obviously a task, not to be justifiably avoided, to place some higher example before the world. B 2 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. For some time — I am now forty-seven — I had been feeling this with increasing urgency. And when not only my wife and her four sisters, but the vicar of my parish, the Reverend Simeon Whey, approached me with the same suggestion, I felt that delay would amount to sin. That sin, by many persons, is now lightly regarded, I am, of course, only too well aware. That its very existence is denied by others is a fact equally familiar to me. But I am not one of them. On every ground I am an unflinching opponent of sin. I have continually rebuked it in others. I have strictly refrained from it in myself. And for that reason alone I have deemed it incumbent upon me to issue this volume. A glance at the frontispiece will show me as I appeared at the age of twenty-one. But I pro¬ pose in the first instance to deal with my earliest surroundings and the influence exerted upon me by my father. Believing as I do that every man (and to a lesser extent every woman) is almost entirely the product of his or her personal endeavours, I cannot pretend, of course, to attach much importance to merely paternal influence. Nevertheless in the lives of each one of us it undoubtedly plays a certain part. And although my father had numerous faults, as I afterwards discovered and was able to point out 3 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. to him, he yet brought to bear on me the full force of a frequently noble character. That such was his duty I do not of course deny. But duty well done is rare enough to deserve a tribute. And in days such as these, when fatherhood is so lightly regarded, and is so frequently, indeed, accidental, too much atten¬ tion can surely not be given to so opposite an instance. At the time of my birth, then, and until his death, my father was a civic official in a respon¬ sible position, being a collector of outstanding accounts for the Consolidated Water Board. In addition, he was one of the most respected and trustworthy agents of the Durham and West Hartlepool Fire and Burglary Insurance Com¬ pany, a sidesman of the Church of St. James- the-Less in Camberwell, and the tenant of Mon Repos, Angela Gardens. This was one of some thirty-six admirably conceived houses of a similar and richly ornamented architecture, the front door of each being flanked and sur¬ mounted by diamond-shaped panes of blue and vermilion glass; and though it was true that this particular house had been named by the landlord in a foreign tongue, it must not be assumed that this nomenclature in any way met with my father's approval. On the contrary, he had not only protested, but such was his 4 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. distrust of French morality that he had always insisted, both for himself and others, upon a strictly English pronunciation. Somewhat under lower middle height, my father, even as a boy, had been inclined to corpulence, a characteristic, inherited by myself, that he succeeded in retaining to the end of his life. Nor did he ever lose — or not to any marked extent — either the abundant hair that grew upon his scalp, his glossy and luxurious moustache, or his extraordinarily powerful voice. This was a deep bass that in moments of emotion became suddenly converted into a high falsetto, and he never hesitated, in a cause that he deemed righteous, to employ it to its full capacity. Always highly coloured, and the fortunate possessor of an exceptionally large and well- modelled ncse, my father's eyes were of a singu¬ larly pale, unwinking blue, while in his massive ears, with their boldly outstanding rims, resided the rare faculty of independent motion. My mother, on the other hand, presented hardly a feature that could, in the strictest sense, have been called beautiful, although she was somewhat taller than my father, with eyes that were similar in their shade of blue. Like my father's, too, her nose was large, but it had been built on lines that were altogether weaker, and the slightly reddish down upon her upper lip 5 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. might even by some people have been considered a disfigurement. She had inherited, however, together with five hundred pounds, an appar¬ ently gentle disposition, and was a scion or scioness of the Walworth Road branch of the great family of Robinson. Herself the eldest of the nine daughters of Mortiiher Robinson, a well-known provision merchant, my father had claimed relationship for her, albeit unsuccess¬ fully, with Peter Robinson of Oxford Street, while he used half humorously to assert her con¬ nection with the fictional character known as Robinson Crusoe. Clean in her habits, quiet about the house, and invariably obedient to his slightest wish, he had very seldom indeed, as he often told me, seriously regretted his choice of a wife. With sufficient capital, therefore, not only to furnish his house, but to pay its first year's rent and establish an emergency fund, my father might well have been supposed by an ignorant observer to be free from every anxiety. Such was not the case, however, and he was obliged, almost immediately, to face one of the sternest ordeals of his married life. Ardently desiring increase, it was not for nine and a half months that Providence saw fit to answer his prayers, and as week succeeded week and the cradle still remained empty, only his unfaltering faith saved AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. him from despair. But the hour came at last, and so vividly has my father described it to me that I have long since shared its triumphant joy. Born at half-past three on a February morn¬ ing, the world having been decked with a slight snow-fall, it was then that my mother’s aunt, Mrs. Emily Smith, opened the bedroom door and emerged on the landing. My father had gone outside to lean over the gate, and was still leaning there when she opened the door, but my mother’s mother, with another of my mother’s aunts, were standing with bowed heads at the foot of the stairs. Prone in the parlour, and stretched in uneasy attitudes, five of her eight sisters were snatching a troubled sleep, while two fellow-members of my mother’s Mothers’ Guild were upon their knees in the back kitchen. But for the fact, indeed, that two of my mother’s sisters had not, at that time, had their tonsils removed, the whole house would have been wrapped in the profoundest stillness. My mother’s mother was the first to see Mrs. Smith, though she only saw her, as it were, through a mist. Mrs. Smith was the first to speak, in a voice tremulous with emotion. “ Where’s Augustus?” she said. Augustus was my father’s name. “ He’s just gone outside,” said my mother’s mother. 7 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. Something splashed heavily on the hall linoleum. It was a drop of moisture from Mrs. Smith's forehead. “ Tell him,” she said, “ that he's the father of a son.” My mother's mother gave a great ery. My father was beside her in a single leap. Always, as I have said, highly coloured, his face at this moment seemed literally on fire. The two fellow-members of my mother's Mothers' Guild, accompanied by my father's five sisters-in-law, rushed into the hall. Mrs. Smith leaned over the banisters. “ A boy,” she said. “ It's a boy.” “ A boy? ” said my father. “ Yes, a boy,” said Mrs. Smith. There was a moment's hush, and then Nature had its way. My father unashamedly burst into tears. My mother's mother kissed him on the neck just as the two fellow-members burst into a hymn ; and a moment later, my mother's five sisters burst simultaneously into the doxology. Then my father recovered himself and held up his hand. “ I shall call him Augustus,” he said, “ after myself.” “ Or tin ? ” suggested my mother's mother. “ What about calling him tin, after the saint? ” “ How do you mean — tin ? ” said my father. 8 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. “ Augus-tin,” said Mrs. Emily Smith. But my father shook his head. “ No, it shall be tus,” he said. “ Tus is better than tin.” Then his five sisters-in-law resumed the sing¬ ing, from which the two fellow-members had been unable to desist, until my father, who had been rapidly thinking, once again held up his hand. “ And I shall give the vicar,” he said, “ the first opportunity of becoming Augustus's god¬ father.” Then he took a deep breath, threw back his shoulders, tilted his chin, and closed his eyes; and with the full vigour of his immense voice, he too joined in the doxology. CHAPTER II Trials of my infancy. Varieties of indigestion. I suffer from a local erythema. Instance of my father’s unselfishness. Difficulty in providing a second godfather. Unexpected solution of the problem. The ceremony of my baptism. A narrow escape. Was it culpable carelessness ? My father transfers his worship to St. J ames-the-Lesser-Still, Peckham Rye. With the portion of my life that intervened between my birth and my baptism I do not propose, owing to exigencies of space, to deal in the fullest detail. But it may be of some comfort to weaker fellow-sufferers to be assured that, from the outset, the ill health to which I have been a life-long martyr played its part in testing my character. Singularly well formed, of a sanguine complexion, and weighing not less than four and three-quarter pounds, Providence saw fit almost immediately to purge me without medicinal aid. Whether this was due, under Higher Supervision, as my father several times forcibly suggested to her, to some dietary excess or indiscretion on the part of my mother was never determined. But the fact remained that for several weeks I suffered from indigestion in two main directions. 9 10 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. Twice indeed, on the grounds of health, the ceremony of my baptism had to be postponed ; and for hours together, I have been told, I lay upon my back, with my knees drawn up and my fingers clenched, in an anguished endeavour to stifle the moans that I was too enfeebled wholly to suppress. Time after time, too, my mother's mother, the aunt that had stood with her at the bottom of the stairs, and various of my mother’s sisters would recommend alterna¬ tive forms of nourishment. But although, at my father’s desire, each of these suggestions was given an immediate trial, it was not for two months, and until I had been subjected to a heart-breaking period of starvation, that an affliction abated to which I have since been liable at any moment of undue excitement. Chastened within, however, as I had been, I was not to escape chastisement without. For no sooner had I begun, in some small measure, to assimilate the food provided for me than I became the victim of an unfortunate skin com¬ plaint known, as I am informed, as erythema. This was happily local, but it gave rise to a very profound irritation, and one that proved, as my father has often assured me, to be of a peculiarly obstinate character. Naturally diffident, owing to the site of the affection, to mention it even to the family doctor, my parents exhausted their AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. 11 every resource without procuring the least alleviation. Though for night after night they made it a matter of prayer, my sufferings were pitiful, I have been told, to the last extreme; and almost hourly, from supper-time to break¬ fast, the darkness was rent with my cries. Unable at last, owing to his acute sensibilities, to witness my agony any longer, my father was obliged, with the deepest reluctance, to confine himself to a separate bedroom. But it was in this extremity that his almost Quixotic unselfish¬ ness shone if possible with an added lustre. From the time of his marriage to the day of my birth, and as soon thereafter as the doctor had permitted her to rise, my father had been in the habit of enabling my mother to provide him with an early cup of tea. And this he had done by waking her regularly a few minutes before six o'clock. In view of the fact, however, that he was now occupying a different bedroom, and that, owing to my indisposition, she was awake most of the night, he offered to excuse her should she chance to be asleep at that hour, from the performance of this wifely duty. Needless to say, it was not an offer that she could accept. Indeed, in his heart he had not expected her to do so. And I have even con¬ sidered the incident, in later days, as illustrative of a certain weakness in my father's character. 12 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. But I have never been able to regard it without affection or to forbear mentioning it on appro¬ priate occasions. That in most respects, however, my father's temperament was an exceptionally unflinching one was amply corroborated by the circum¬ stances attendant upon the choice of my second godfather. This gave rise, as my father has frequently told me, to the most prolonged and anxious discussions, and entailed an enormous amount of correspondence, some of which has been preserved among the family documents. For with his ruthless determination, inherited by myself, to discover and expose every kind of wrong-doing, with his life-long habit of inform¬ ing those in authority of any dereliction of duty in themselves and their subordinates, and with the passion for truth that compelled him on every occasion instantly to correct what he deemed the reverse, my father had necessarily but little leisure to cultivate the easy art of friendship. Amongst his acquaintances, in¬ deed, there were but few that even remotely approximated to his standards; and he had found none that his conscience had permitted him to select for the purposes of personal friendship. It was for this reason that, on the occasion of his marriage, he had dispensed with the services 13 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. of a best man. And although the vicar had eventually agreed to act as one of my male sponsors, the appointment of a second began to assume the proportions of an almost insolu¬ ble problem. It being manifestly impossible to hope for a suitable candidate among such persons as occasionally called at the house, and my father’s character having long ago isolated him from his more immediate masculine relatives, he resolved at last to appeal to the public sense of the higher officials of the Church of Eng¬ land. Nor was the result ungratifying, as various letters still in my possession go to prove. Though unable, owing to so many similar and previ¬ ously acquired obligations, to accede to my father’s suggestion, all of them replied with the greatest courtesy. Thus the Dean of St. Paul’s wrote in person wishing me every success in life; the Bishop of London trusted that my father’s aspirations as to my personal holiness would be realized ; while the Archbishop of Canterbury commanded his secretary to express his gratification at the suggestion of an honour that only the exigencies of his position as Primate forbade him to accept. Needless to say, those in charge of the State, whom my father next approached, behaved very differently. Neither the Prime Minister nor the Home Secretary saw 14 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. fit to reply at all, while the President of the Board of Trade merely expressed a formal regret. And yet in the end, as is so often the case, the solution proved quite a simple one. Turn but a stone, says a poet, and start a wing. And my father did not even need to turn a stone. Sick at heart, he was returning home one night when he suddenly caught sight of himself in a cheese¬ monger’s window. It was as though Providence, he said, had touched him on the shoulder. Whereas he had been blind, he said, then he saw. For a moment the shock was almost too much for him. A member of the constabulary, indeed, actually asked him to move on. But the solution was there, staring him in the face. Involuntarily he raised his hat. He himself was the man. With my aunt, Mrs. Emily Smith, only too eager to be my godmother, everything now seemed to be propitious for the happy consum¬ mation of my baptism, and no more earnest or reverent gathering could have been found that day in any metropolitan church. The vicar being godfather, the actual ceremony was, at my father’s suggestion, performed by the senior curate, the junior curate, in deference to my father’s position as sidesman, being on the vicar’s right hand between him and my mo¬ ther. 15 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. On the senior curate's left stood my father, flanked on his own left by the verger, the circle round the font being completed by Mrs. Emily Smith, my mother's mother, my mother's father, her eight sisters and the aunt that had stood with my mother's mother at the foot of the stairs. A soft April rain was refreshing the outside world, and the first part of the service had been successfully performed, when an incident occurred that might well have been attended with the most tragic and irreparable consequences. For there suddenly took place, just as I had been handed to the senior curate, so acute an exacerbation of the erythema that, in the ensuing convulsion, he was quite unable to retain me in his grasp. I say unable, but, as my father pointed out to him immediately after the close of the service, had I suffered any provable damage he would certainly have taken legal advice. Falling from his arms, however, I remained poised for a moment upon the extreme brim of the font, and then fell forward, colliding with the vicar, who stumbled backwards in his efforts to save me. From the tottering vicar I then ricochetted, in what I believe is a military phrase, towards the feet of the junior curate, who became unex¬ pectedly the instrument of Providence. I do not myself practise, nor do I greatly approve, 16 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. any form of merely athletic exercise. But it was perhaps fortunate that the curate in question happened to be a skilful player of cricket. For just as my head was within an inch of the floor and the blood had receded from every counten¬ ance, he shot out his hand and succeeded in catching me in a position technically known, I believe, as the slips. “ Oh, well held, sir ! " cried the senior curate, and then for a moment or two his emotion overcame him. The vicar, still pale, recovered his balance. “Poor little Augustus/' said my mother; “ it's the irritation." My father frowned at her. “ Without prejudice," he said. And then for perhaps half a minute there was a deathly silence. It was fractured, I have been told, by myself, as the junior curate handed me back to the senior. But my father intervened. “ Not again," he said. “ Never again; never in this world." The silence was resumed, broken only by myself. My father stood holding me, trembling with emotion. The vicar took a deep breath. “ Is the service to proceed? " he asked. “ Certainly," said my father. “ But in other hands." AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. 17 It was another instance of his dominating character, but also of his innate sense of justice. “ I am not insensible/’ he said to the senior curate, “ of the services that you have already rendered. But in the interests of my son, as you must surely agree, I cannot again trust him to your care.” The senior curate bowed, but did not articulate a reply, and my father then handed me once more to the junior. For a moment the latter hesitated, but at the vicar’s request accepted the privilege of concluding my baptism. Later, I have been told, there was a certain amount of argument, in which my father more than held his own, finally absolving the vicar from further sponsorial duties and notifying his decision to transfer his worship elsewhere. For a man of my father’s position this was a serious step. But it was one that he did not hesitate to take. And within a year, as I have always been proud to remember, he had made himself a sidesman at St. James-the-Lesser-Still, Peckham Rye. c CHAPTER III My parents’ studies in the upbringing of children. A successful instance of non- vaccination. Further example of my father's consideration for others. My mother’s ill-health. My parents engage a charwoman. Her appearance and character. Physical characteristics of her son. Deplor¬ able social result of the war. Continued presumption of charwoman’s son. I rebuff him. Affection for grey rabbit. Charwoman’s son’s cannon and the use made of it by him. Scenes of violence, and intervention of my father. Intervention of charwoman. A lethargic vicar. Was he also immoral? My father transfers his worship to St. James-the-Least-of-All. Apart from the ill-health to which I have previously made reference, but which was punc¬ tuated with intervals of comparative well¬ being, I have always regarded my first five or six years as a particularly fruitful period. At my father’s desire, almost in this case a com¬ mand, my mother began to study various books on childhood, such as Dr. Brewinson’s Childish Complaints , Mrs. Edward Podmere’s Diet in Infancy , the Reverend Ambrose Walker’s First Steps in Religion , Wilbur P. Nathan’s The Babe and the Infinite , Mrs. Wood-Mortimer’s Clothes and the Young , and Jonathan and Cornwall’s Dictionary of Home Medicine. Each of these, 18 19 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. with the exception of the Dictionary, was borrowed in turn from the nearest public library, and it became my mother's custom to consecrate her afternoon rest hour to the perusal of these volumes. According to an arrangement suggested by my father, she would study one chapter each after¬ noon, or alternatively three and a half pages of the Dictionary of Home Medicine . On his return from work, and after she had washed up the supper dishes — for my father at this time did not employ a domestic — he would put her through a searching examination upon what she had read earlier in the day. If, as was frequently the case, since my mother was not naturally scholastic, she failed to satisfy her examiner, he would playfully impose upon her the little penalty of again going through her task before she went to bed. And on such occasions, if he had not fallen asleep, he would re-examine her when she came to bid him good¬ night. If, on the other hand, her replies had been judged adequate, it was an understood thing that she might claim an extra kiss. So seriously, indeed, did my mother apply herself that she began to grow unattractively thin ; and once, when she had failed in her examination on three successive nights, she actually burst into tears. For this feminine weakness, when she 20 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. had asked his pardon, my father of course readily forgave her, merely pointing out that, with my future at stake, he was obviously unable to relax his standards. Regarding me thus, from the very first, as a sacred trust committed to their charge, this is but a small example of the immense and un¬ remitting care with which my parents undertook me. But it will at least suffice to show that they had not underrated the high task to which they had been called. To my father especially, as the months slipped all too quickly by, I became inexpressibly dear; and it was for that reason among others that I escaped the torments of vaccination. Though Jonathan and Corn- walks Dictionary of Home Medicine advocated this operation on historical grounds, my father had an instinctive, but none the less well- reasoned, horror of the knife. Himself the subject of frequent boils, he would never permit these to be lanced, invariably giving orders that they should be poulticed until Nature herself brought about their evacuation. Nor can I say that, in my own case, he has been other than completely justified. It is true that I have suffered, and still do suffer, apart from the indigestion previously referred to, from several forms of neurasthenia, a marked tendency to eczema, occipital headaches, sour eructations, AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. 21 and flatulent distension of the abdomen. But from smallpox, although entirely unvaccinated, I have always remained singularly immune. A similar prescience, too, sufficed to protect me from the anguish and indignity of personal chastisement. For although in principle my father was an ardent supporter of this, and indeed had administered it to several of his relatives' children, he had never required it, he said, in his own case, and did not propose to have it inflicted on me. And it was the abrogation of this rule, although not until my seventh year, by the son of a powerful Hibernian charwoman that first revealed to me, in a never- to-be-forgotten flash, some of the profoundest depths of human iniquity. It was soon after my sixth birthday that my father was first compelled to employ a char¬ woman, owing to an attack of unconsciousness on the part of my mother. For several months she had been complaining of breathlessness, incident upon certain of her domestic duties, such as floor-scrubbing, home laundry-work, cleaning the front steps, and polishing the boots and shoes. With his usual consideration my father had instantly remitted various other tasks proper to her position, such as the baking of bread twice a week, and the knitting of the family socks and stockings ; and he had further 22 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. excused her from my own daily tuition in both Latin and arithmetic. Involving, as these sub¬ jects did, considerable previous preparation, this was of course a sensible relief, obtained though it was at some hazard to my own intellectual future. But despite all these concessions, she continued to be unwell, and finally, as I have said, lapsed into unconsciousness. For a brief period, therefore, and after medical advice, my father resolved to employ extraneous aid, and at a very considerable financial sacrifice engaged a person called Mrs. O’Flaherty. The widow of a colour-sergeant, and one of the church scrubbers, she was highly recommended by the vicar of St. James-the-Lesser-Still, and was not devoid, in certain deceptive respects, of the superficial charm of her race. Ominously developed as she was, both below and above the waist, her features were informed with an unin¬ telligent but specious cheerfulness; and these, together with a not unattractive complexion, sufficed for some time to impose upon my mother. My father, from the beginning, had his doubts of her character, but in view of the vicar’s recommendation, decided to employ her ; and for the first month or two, apart from her habit of singing, found no cause for particular complaint. He even went so far, upon my mother’s inter¬ cession, as to allow the woman to bring her 28 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. youngest child with her, a somewhat gross and over-exuberant lad a few months younger than myself. That this youth, practically a gutter-snipe, and afterwards a private in the army, should have become a Brigadier-General in the late war, and even have received, as I understand, some kind of decoration, was one of the most deplor¬ able of the many social upheavals for which that disaster was responsible. From the very outset, with that sensitiveness of vision granted by Providence to certain children, I regarded this new intruder with the deepest suspicion. Obviously inheriting the physique of his mother, and as it seemed the proclivities of his father, his chief article of amusement appeared to be a small cannon, equipped with a spring for purposes of propul¬ sion. This he offered to lend me on the occasion of his first visit, but declining his advances I moved to another room, where I continued my study of a book upon the apostles, written for the young by a Somersetshire clergyman. Undeterred, however, by a reticence that should have been more than sufficient for a boy with the least good feeling, Desmond, for that was his pretentious name, made a similar offer on his second visit. Again I declined and removed myself, subsequently mentioning the 24 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. matter to my father, who instantly gave orders that for the future Mrs. O’Flaherty’s boy was to be confined to the kitchen. “ You will kindly make it clear,” he said, “ to your son that I cannot have my own son dis¬ turbed, and that admission to my house does not necessarily include admission to my social circle.” Unfortunately, owing to a very natural slip due to the rapidity of his elocution, my father pronounced these words as sershle soakle; and I have never forgotten the vulgar and ill- concealed grin with which Mrs. O’Flaherty promised to attend to the matter. Upon the following Saturday, however, a beautiful day in June, with the gerania in the front garden in full bloom, Desmond O’Flaherty again began to make overtures to me through the open door of the kitchen. The parlour door being again ajar, I was of course visible to him as I reclined on the sofa ; and I instantly observed that he had brought his cannon with him and that its muzzle was pointing towards myself. Informing me that his pocket was full of peas, suitably dried for the purposes of ammunition, he then invited me to become his companion in a game of definitely military character. This I refused, and I can still recall every detail of all that followed. Happily employed 25 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. combing a grey rabbit, to which I was deeply attached, and which I had named, but a day or two previously, after the major prophet Isaiah, I heard a faint click and the next moment was violently struck upon the back of my hand. Unable to suppress a cry of pain, I involuntarily tightened my grip on Isaiah, who suddenly turned his head and made a move¬ ment as if about to bite my index finger. Real¬ izing as I did, from my knowledge of the Dictionary of Home Medicine , the fatal con¬ sequences that might possibly have ensued, I flung him from me and sprang to the floor, almost beside myself with fear and anguish. With an expression of reproach that cut me to the very heart Isaiah then retreated behind the har¬ monium; and at the same moment I heard a raucous laugh proceeding from the direction of Desmond. But for Desmond and his mother I was alone in the house, yet I did not hesitate to advance towards the kitchen and grind the cannon beneath my foot. Twice I stamped upon it in what still seems to me a wholly righteous indignation, and in a couple of seconds I had reduced it to an irreparable wreck. For a moment Desmond said nothing. I had taken him by surprise. But then he rushed towards me with a kind of snort, and fiercely hit me 26 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. on a face already suffused with tears. I turned away from him shaken with sobs. But his bestial appetites were still unsated. A second and a third time he hit me, on both occasions on the neck, and followed this up by an assault with his foot upon the lower portion of my back. But my cries, now almost amounting to shrieks, had by this time attracted Mrs. OTlaherty, and at the same instant my father, returning early, unlocked the front door. In a flash I was in his arms and had sobbed out to him the whole pitiful tale. I felt him quiver and then control himself, as he gently placed me to one side. Then he advanced to Desmond, pointing to the crumpled cannon. “ Pick that up,” he said, “ and leave this house for ever.” Desmond replied insolently that he would not do so, whereupon my father struck him smartly upon the cheek. For a moment Desmond glared at him, and then, lowering his head, he rushed at my father, beating him with both fists. Taken unawares, my father was obliged to sit heavily down upon an entirely unpadded hall chair, and once again I observed a malignant smile upon the face of Mrs. OTlaherty. But it was only momentary. For, thrusting the little savage away from him, my father hit him twice with the handle of his walking-stick. 27 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. As well aimed as they were richly deserved, these blows took instant effect, the first knock¬ ing the evil lad sideways, and the second divid¬ ing the integument of his forehead. Suffering though he was, my father then rose to his feet and was once more about to address Desmond, when Mrs. OTlaherty, revealed in her true character, ferociously caught him by the shoulders. As I have already recorded, she was a woman of repulsively over-developed physique, and she now began to shake my father so vio¬ lently that his upper denture fell to the ground. “You little whelp ! ” she cried with incredible blasphemy, “ you little whelp of a bullying puff-ball ! ” Then to my horror, no less than to his own, she lifted him bodily from the ground. For a brief moment, or so it seemed to me, I was on the verge of a merciful oblivion, but the next instant I beheld Mrs. OTlaherty thrusting my father’s head into her pail. It was a commodi¬ ous pail, very nearly full with incompletely clean water, and containing in addition the saturated garment with which it was her habit to wash the linoleum. Three separate times she immersed his head in this, even submerging the backs of his ears, and when at last she released him, and he had regained his breath, he was more moved than I had ever seen him. 28 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. Always eloquent, his denunciation of her conduct, deservedly attuned to the level of her understanding, was of a severity that has scarcely been equalled even in the writings of my rabbit's namesake. Time after time, with a holy passion that repeatedly interfered with his respiration, he felt it obligatory to adjure his Creator to consign such a soul to its just perdi¬ tion. And when Mrs. O'Flaherty handed him his upper denture he dashed it once more to the ground. Finally he commanded her to leave the house instantly, frankly informing her that he should prosecute her for assault. “ Yes, it'll look real nice," she said, “ in the local papers, chippin' a child's 'ead open and 'avin' yer own in a pail." The malevolence with which she said this was almost inconceivable. But, as my father pointed out to me when she had gone, it raised issues of the profoundest importance that would demand his most serious consideration. For while in his own person — in propria persona 1 — it might be his duty to bring her before the magistrates, it might be no less important, as a sidesman of the Established Church, to avoid the contin¬ gent publicity. This indeed was the decision to which he ultimately came, and as an instance of what may be called, perhaps, his sanctified 1 In his ownjperson. 29 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. statesmanship, it has always seemed to me to shed a peculiar radiance upon one of the sublimest aspects of his character. With regard, however, to the lethargy, little less than criminal, of the vicar of St. James-the-Lesser-Still, I have always been at a loss; and I cannot help sus¬ pecting, as indeed my father openly suggested to him, that his relations with Mrs. O'Flaherty were not at all what they should have been. For not only did he deprecate, having heard my father's narrative, what he weakly described as any precipitate action, but she was actually observed by an acquaintance of my father's scrubbing the church floor upon the following evening. Under such circumstances my father had no choice but to hasten instantly to the vicarage, where he confronted the vicar with the sugges¬ tion — an extremely natural one — already referred to. But his reply, as my father has often assured me, was neither Xtian nor even gentlemanly, and my father was obliged therefore, with the deepest reluctance, once more to transfer his worship. It was a serious step, but he had been fortified with the experi¬ ence previously forced upon him at St. James- the-Less, and in less than five months he had become one of the foremost sidesmen at St. James-the-Least-of-All, Kennington Oval. CHAPTER IV Further years of boyhood and additional crosses. Progress in study and music. I excel at the game of Nuts in May. I am to go to Hopkinson House School. But Providence again intervenes. I become a victim of the ring- worm. Devastating effect of an ointment. Mr. Balfour Whey and his sons. A brutal County Court judge. But my father obtains damages. Physically shattered as I had been by the attack on my person by Desmond OTlaherty, the mental and spiritual consequences of this assault were far more serious and prolonged. Awakened for the first time to the contemporary existence of a depravity hitherto unsuspected by me, I was unable for several weeks to regain my previous composure, or indeed to venture unaccompanied beyond the precincts of the house. Nor could I bear even to contemplate the introduction of a successor to Mrs. OTlaherty. For that reason, although still in poor health, my mother was obliged to resume her former duties, while my father was confirmed in his decision to postpone my schooldays for another three or four years. To this he had already 30 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. 31 been inclined, partly owing to the representations that I myself had been compelled to make to him, and partly owing to his desire to assist me as far as possible in bearing the crosses with which Providence had entrusted me. Far beyond the average both in weight and number, I can realize now of course what a privilege these were. But in the earlier years of my boyhood they taxed my faith to its utmost powers. Many were the times, for instance, when after a long morning's study, merely interrupted by an occasional cup of cocoa, I turned with avidity to a simple but abundant meal of roast pork and open jam tart, only to find myself, an hour or two later, rolling in agony upon the sofa, or even indeed summoned on certain occasions to yield it back whence it came. This was perhaps the hardest lesson of all. But I am happy to say that at last I learned it. And I can well remember the pride with which my father, hurrying into the parlour with a convenient receptacle, first found me consoling myself with some appropriate verses from an early chapter of the book of Job. That incident alone, as my father often used to say, was a complete justification of his decision to postpone my school life ; and I am quite confident that, had I been earlier subjected 32 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. to the propinquity of coarser-fibred boys, I should never have survived to render adult service to the men and women of my time. Nor should I have made, I am sure, such intellectual progress as I achieved between my sixth and eleventh birthdays. Familiar from cover to cover not only with the Holy Bible, but also with the Apocrypha, I had attained dexterity in simple division, was acquainted with the geography of the British Isles, and had read the history of England so far as the reign of Queen Anne. Passionately devoted to music, I had taught myself to play from memory the airs of a large number of well-known hymns, including several of the more rapid and accentu¬ ated of the late Messrs. Moody and Sankey. Subject to my father’s guidance, too, I ranged in boyish fashion amongst literature of a lighter order. With some of the works of Longfellow, for instance, I was soon so familiar as to be able to repeat them without a mistake, and I can still recall the delight with which I read a work of fiction in which Martin Luther was one of the characters portrayed. Happy as I was, however, with some such volume as this, a pound or two of chocolates, and my rabbit Isaiah, or to settle down for a long summer afternoon with the Hymnal Com¬ panion to the Book of Common Prayer, I was S3 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. not averse from an occasional ramble in the company of my father, or even from exercise of a more vehement order with younger and suitable comrades. The chief of these latter was Emily Smith, the granddaughter of Mrs. Emily Smith, my mother's aunt, a gentle child, who was unfortunately an albino, but of a deeply religious and sympathetic nature. A year or two older than myself, she lived with her grandmother at New Cross, and in her company and that of some of her school companions, I played several health-giving and mirthful games. One of our favourites, I remember, was Hide and Go Seek, combining both physical and mental exertion ; and another, of which we were hardly less fond, was known as Nuts in May. For the purposes of this latter game those who proposed to take part would first form themselves into two equal groups, the members of each moiety then standing side by side, facing the same way and holding each other's hands. The two groups would then take up positions, each opposite each, in joyous anticipa¬ tion, and so arranged as to secure a space between them sufficient for an alternating advance and retreat. By a previous arrangement one of the two sides would then approximate itself to the other, singing in unison and to an established 34 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. melody, the following humorously incongruous lines. Here we go gathering nuts in May, nuts in May, nuts in May, Here we go gathering nuts in May On a cold and frosty morning. That we were not in fact doing so was of course obvious. But the innocent laughter that the words always provoked in us was quite sufficient, in the opinion of myself and my comrades, to rob them of any semblance of deliberate untruthfulness. It would then become the turn of the previously silent and stationary players to advance singing a second stanza, in which they would merrily inquire which of their number was to be chosen as symbolic of these nuts in May. To them in reply the first group would designate a member of the second, whereupon the second group would once more advance with the very pertinent query Whom will you send to fetch her (or him, if it was myself) away, fetch her (or him, if it was myself) away, fetch her (or him, if it was myself) away, Whom will you send to fetch her (or him, if it was myself) away, On a cold and frosty morning ? The members of the first group would then select one of their comrades to be the emissary of conveyance, and to the same melody and with a similar gesture, would announce their choice to the second group. A pocket-handkerchief. AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. 35 folded upon itself diagonally, would then be stretched upon the grass, parallel to and midway between the merry and expectant companies of players. The symbolized nut and its would-be gatherer would then face each other across the extended handkerchief, grasp hands, and each earnestly endeavour to draw the other across the separating fabric. To whomsoever was successful the other would then be accorded as a member henceforward of the victor’s group, and the game would proceed as before with ever-increasing mirth. Ultimately it might happen, and indeed it often did, that one of the sides would finally absorb the other, and the absorbing side usually including myself, my services were naturally in the keenest demand. I soon found in fact that, in spite of my ill-health, I was singularly adapted to this form of recreation. Inheriting, as I did, to a very great extent, my father’s powerful and sonorous voice, I was able to throw myself with dominating effect into the preliminary vocal exchanges, while my physique stood me in admirable stead in the later stages of the game. For though I was short, with singularly slender arms, my abdomen was large and well covered, while my feet, with their exceptional length and breadth and almost imperceptible arches, enabled me to obtain a 36 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. tenacious hold of the ground upon which they were set. So proficient in fact did I become that when I went to school I was bitterly disappointed to find that this, my favourite game of play, was not even included in the curriculum. In later years I have heard this game criticized both on moral and physical grounds, and even my friend and vicar, the Reverend Simeon Whey, has had grave doubts as to its permissibility. On many occasions indeed we have sat far into the night arguing about its effect on the Xtian character. But I am happy to say that he has now gone so far as to approve of it for others. Indeed, as I have more than once facetiously suggested to him, his real objections to the game have been personal, founded on a lack of success in its practice that may well have prejudiced his outlook. For though he is no mean exponent of the game of Draughts, as well as that of Word Making and Word Taking, at Nuts in May he has seldom if ever avoided being drawn across the handkerchief. As the result of my protests, however, he has continued to permit the game to be one of the brightest features of our annual Sunday School gatherings; and most of our schoolmistresses, I think, would be compelled to testify that I have retained all my old-time skill. 87 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. In such fashion, then, I emerged into my twelfth year ; and, albeit with considerable misgivings, my father arranged at last for my entry into a high-class school in the neighbour¬ hood. Known as Hopkinson House School for the Sons of Gentlemen, it was conveniently situated in Jasmine Grove on the southern outskirts of Camberwell, and included features in its dignified exterior of almost every type of architecture. Approached by a semi-circular gravel drive with gates of entry and exit, it was flanked on both sides, and isolated in the rear, by an asphalt recreation-ground. Above the front steps, two chocolate-coloured pillars supported a classical portico, and the windows of the first-floor rooms were surmounted with characteristic Gothic mouldings. The windows of the first, second and third storeys were of a simpler Georgian pattern, but the roof was uplifted, at its anterior corners, into castellated Norman turrets. Midway between these, an Elizabethan gable formed a pleasing contrast, and the two chimney-stacks, each bearing a lightning-conductor, were decorated with Moorish relief work. Conducted by a Mr. Septimus Lorton, the successor to Mr. Hopkinson, the founder of the school, it was daily attended by some seventy or eighty of the sons of the Peckham and 38 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. Camberwell gentry. Concerning Mr. Lorton I shall have more to say presently, but just about a week before what was to have been my first term, a tender but inscrutable Providence once again intervened. The agent of this new afflic¬ tion was a parasite commonly known, I under¬ stand, as the ring-worm, and within a brief period it had established upon my head no less than four separate colonies. That being the case, not only was my school-life yet a second time postponed, but I was obliged to render up, under medical orders, and that the extent of the malady might be the more easily discernible, the greater proportion of my abundant and not unattractive chestnut hair. To the first of these consequences I was reconciled with no great difficulty, but to the second, I must confess, resignation was not so easy ; and for night after night my pillow was moistened with tears scarcely restrained during the day. But worse was to follow. For upon the appearance of a fifth and even more intractable settlement, the doctor in charge of the case took the opportunity of prescribing a wholly unjustifiable ointment. That it slew the parasites was undoubtedly true. But such were the ravages of this violent medica¬ ment that, to an accompaniment of the acutest distress, the whole of my hair disappeared. Even in this, however, probably up till then AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. 39 the darkest hour of my existence, Providence had set a rainbow across my despair from which I have never since failed to glean comfort. Roused to the very depths of his indignant paternity, my father immediately began to take steps against the doctor, while both Mrs. Emily Smith, the grandmother of my little comrade, and the aunt that had stood with my mother's mother at the bottom of the stairs, provided me with velveteen skull-caps, skilfully em¬ broidered with forget-me-nots. Perhaps the most fruitful, however, of the issues of this affliction, apart from the damages that my father ultimately secured, was the life¬ long friendship that it produced between our¬ selves and the Whey family. A junior sidesman to my father at St. James-the-Least-of- All, Mr. Balfour Whey was not only a rising solicitor, but the father of two boys, Simeon and Silas. To the elder of these, Simeon, I have already referred as the vicar of the parish in which I at present reside. But Silas, since dead under distressing circumstances, to which I shall refer in due course, was but half an hour younger, and they were usually regarded as being twins. Xtian lads of about my own age, and each with an impediment in his speech, both were destined on this account for eventual ordination in the Church of England. What knitted us 40 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. together, however, at this painful juncture was the curious fact that, in addition to others, both of them were suffering like myself from an invasion of the ring-worm. Adequately treated, however, they had retained their hair, and, as their father immediately perceived, might for this reason prove invaluable witnesses in the prosecution upon which we had determined. In this Mr. Balfour Whey had already con¬ sented to act as my father's legal adviser, on the understanding that, if the case should fail, my father should be exempt from the payment of charges, while, if it should succeed, the damages should be shared between them on agreed and equitable terms. An extremely forcible Hibernian barrister was then engaged on a similar basis, and never shall I forget the noble determination of these two earnest and devoted men. Fortified with the assistance, somewhat expensive, but under the circumstances deemed necessary, of an extremely adaptable, intelligent, and experienced medical expert, they proved far too powerful both for the doctor, a young man unrepresented by counsel, and even for the County Court judge, a sinister- looking person evidently addicted to alcohol. Nevertheless it was no easy fight and the bias of the judge was obvious from the outset. Time after time when my father rose from his seat 41 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. in the well of the court to make ejaculations, he commanded him to be silent in a tone of voice that no gentleman should have used to another. And once when my mother's aunt, Mrs. Emily Smith, and the aunt that had stood with my mother's mother at the foot of the stairs, rose simultaneously and cried, “ Oh, you story," after an unveracious comment by the doctor, he actually threatened to have them ejected by one of his underlings in the court. Nor was he more polite to my mother's eight sisters, industrious young women who had brought their knitting, even going so far as to say that, if they continued to rattle their needles, he should have them similarly transported. To this my father very naturally objected in one of his most dignified and impassioned speeches, again cut short, though not without the utmost difficulty, by this self-assertive and presumptuous man. Even to Simeon and Silas Whey, each of whom had covered the Bible with kisses, he behaved in such a fashion as entirely to rob them of their natural joy in being in the witness-box. For though it was true, and only to be expected, that their vocal disabilities were increased by their excitement, he not only professed to consider them irrelevant but brutally informed them that they were unintelli¬ gible. For a moment we were stunned. But 42 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. then, as one woman, my mother's eight sisters rose to their feet, as did Mrs. Balfour Whey, Mrs. Emily Smith, and the aunt that had stood with my mother's mother at the foot of the stairs. Led by my father they shouted “ Shame " in tones that shook the very roof, while the Hibernian barrister, with a gesture that I have never seen equalled, swept his papers from the desk before him, and sank speechless into his seat. It was such a scene as no one in the court had probably ever before witnessed, and even the judge seemed slightly taken aback by the volume of resentment that he had aroused. It was at any rate with a distinct tremor and in markedly altered tones that he ordered the proceedings to be resumed. And when I myself, as the prosecution's last witness, proceeded to take the oath in my velveteen skull-cap, his change of colour was so manifest as to become the subject of general comment. Keeping my face firmly towards him, upon the advice of my counsel, I stood unshaken, albeit not unmoved, during the latter’s prelimin¬ ary remarks. Here was a lad, he said, in the soft and vibrant tones of the convinced and accomplished pleader, the only lad, nay, the only child, the solitary hope of his devoted parents. Too delicate hitherto to have been AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. 43 sent to the school — the scholastic establishment for which his abilities had long since qualified him, he had been happily expecting, with all the ardour that His Honour would observe imprinted on his countenance, to have entered this academy of learning some seven weeks before. But what had happened ? His Honour had heard. It was the subject matter of this action. Not only had his career, since time was money, been already seriously crippled, but he had been subjected to a personal mutilation, the moral effect of which it was impossible to appraise. One moment a happy — nay, he might almost say without unduly straining the truth — one moment a happy, but not only a happy, a positively handsome young gentleman, he had been reduced in the next, either by wilful design, by malevolent neglect, or by an infamous want of knowledge, to the spectacle that he would be obliged — how reluctantly His Honour could imagine — to submit to His Honour's inspection. Here a low ripple of sympathy and horror broke involuntarily from most of those present ; and it was perhaps significant, as Mr. Whey remarked to my father, that the judge took no steps to suppress it. Then, after a brief question or two, since, as my counsel said, mine was an ordeal that he dared not long prolong, he asked 44 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. me to remove my velveteen skull-cap and let His Honour see what was underneath. It was an effort. But I achieved it, and the effect on the judge was instantaneous. In spite of his pallor, he had still, up to that point, retained some evidences of his gross habit of life. But now the last vestige of his colour had left him, and he seemed visibly to have lost weight. Contracted to pin-points, his pupils were fixed upon my scalp in a haggard yet fascinating stare; and great beads of perspiration began to glisten upon his forehead. Then, with a sharp expiration like that of a punctured bicycle tyre, he covered his eyes for a moment with his hand, and I knew instinctively, as I replaced my skull-cap, that the case was won. There were further arguments, of course, and technical exchanges, but to everyone in court they must have seemed of little moment ; and I was soon being embraced by father, my aunts and great-aunts, in the happy conscious¬ ness that right had triumphed. Nor was that all. For thanks to the damages awarded, my father and myself were enabled to spend a month at Scarborough, while a generous fee was paid by a well-known firm of hair-restorers for a copy of a photograph of my head that my father had thoughtfully taken. Two years later they paid a similar sum for a photograph AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. 45 of the same area normally covered, both being subsequently reproduced, under another name of course, and with the interval diminished for commercial purposes, as illustrative of the effects of what has since become, I believe, a very profitable commodity. CHAPTER V First experience at Hopkinson House School. It is amongst the masters that I hope to find spiritual companionship. I do not do so. Apology of Mr. Muglington. I am struck by a football. Subsequent apology of Mr. Beerthorpe. Degraded habits of my fellow-scholars. A fearful discovery and its sequel. Amazing ineptitude of Mr. Lorton. Concerted assault upon my person. I am rescued by my father, who procures a public apology. Owing to the successive delays imposed by my general ill-health, the assault upon my person by Desmond O’ Flaherty, the sudden invasion of the ring- worm, and the cranial nudity wrought by the ointment, it was not until I was nearly fourteen that I was at last able to attend school ; and even then it was perhaps doubtful whether my father should have recommended it. For, although by that time my health was somewhat less precarious, the chastening experiences that I had been called upon to endure had naturally lifted me, in almost every respect, far above the plane of most of my contemporaries. And while it was true, of course, that in Simeon and Silas Whey I should find sympathetic and well- liked comrades, I was so much older, both 46 47 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. mentally and spiritually, than such of their acquaintances as I had chanced to meet that it was only amongst the masters that there seemed any reasonable hope of obtaining an equal and appropriate companionship. It was to this end, therefore, while endeavour¬ ing at the same time to place my services at the disposal of my fellow-scholars, that I resolved from the outset to encourage my tutors to per¬ ceive in me a staunch and valuable associate. For the first few days this was not of course easy, owing to the natural confusion incident upon a new term, and it was only by the inter¬ jection of an occasional informative remark that I was enabled to adumbrate my ultimate purpose. Thus when our form-master, a Mr. Muglington, asked me if I knew the capital of Belgium, I replied that while I had not as yet enjoyed the opportunity of paying the town a personal visit, I had been credibly informed that it was known as Brussels, so indissolubly associated with the well-known brassica.1 Though he was a repel¬ lent-looking man with a ginger moustache, I had nevertheless accompanied the words with a friendly smile. But he merely stared at me in what I was compelled to recognise as a singularly crude and offensive fashion. 1 The botanical family that includes the sprout. I am now convinced that Mr. Muglington did not know this. 48 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. “ Let me see/' he said, “ I think your name is Carp.” “ Augustus Carp,” I replied, “ of Angela Gardens.” “ Then kindly remember,” he said, “ to confine yourself in future to the information asked for and nothing else.” It was of course the speech of a peculiarly narrow-minded and vindictive man, fortuitously thrust into a position of authority that had evidently nourished his worst propensities. But I had not as yet realized how deplorably typical he was of the class to which he belonged, and it was a considerable time before I could restrain the sobs that his infamous words had provoked. Nor did he fail to take a further and dastardly advantage of my emotion. “ Perhaps,” he observed, with a malignant sneer, “ when you've quite finished chewing the cud, you'd be so kind as to oblige us by enumera¬ ting the principal exports of Finland.” Afterwards, I am glad to say, thanks to the instant and imperative demand of my father, he was obliged to apologise to me both in my father's presence and in that of the head master, Mr. Septimus Lorton. But it was not an apology, as I discerned at once, founded on any real and heart-felt contrition, and although I assured him that, so far as I was concerned, 49 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. he might consider the incident closed, it was perfectly apparent to me that I could never in the future admit him to the privileges of friendship. Nor was I destined to receive a more satisfying response from the next advance that it seemed my duty to make. Excused on moral grounds from the study of French by a special stipulation of my father, I was permitted instead to take extra lessons in German from a Mr. Beerthorpe. A stoutly-built man with extremely short sight, corrected by lenses of exceptional thickness, I was at first attracted to this person by an expression of what I soon discovered was a spurious amiability. I was also distressed to find him almost universally alluded to by the first syllable of his name only, to which the letter y, not originally present in it, had been appended by way of suffix. Whether or not he was aware of this I did not of course know, but both as an act of kindness and in justice to myself, I felt it incumbent on me to seek the earliest chance of dissociating myself from such a practice. I accordingly took the opportunity one day, when he was acting as arbitrator in a game of football in the playground, of approaching him and touching him on the elbow and suggesting that I should like to have a few words with him. E 50 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. “ Eh, what ? " he said. “ Foul," and he then blew a blast, I remember, on a small whistle. Taken unawares, I could not refrain from shuddering a little, and instinctively put my hands to my ears. “ Well, what is it ? " he asked. “ What's the matter? " “ Perhaps we might withdraw," I replied, “ to some quieter place." “ But what's the trouble? " he said. “ Look out," and he abruptly leapt back to avoid the oncoming football. Not so fortunate, and left entirely unprotected by Mr. Beerthorpe's sudden retreat, I received the full impact of the hurtling projectile upon the upper part of my neck and my left ear, and for some moments I was entirely unable to proceed with the conversation. Indeed had the missile been of the egg-shaped variety frequently employed, I understand, in the same barbarous pursuit, the blow might well have had the most serious, if not fatal, consequences. Nor could I help feeling a trifle disheartened to perceive, when I had regained my powers of speech, that Mr. Beerthrope was still callously blowing his whistle in a remote corner of the playground. Under such circumstances many another lad would have been deflected from his purpose. But in spite of what followed, I have always been glad to remember that I did not 51 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. allow myself to be deterred. Approaching him a second time, I again touched his elbow. “ Good God,” he said, “ are you still there ? ” Naturally flinching a little at the expletive, I reminded him that I had still something to communicate. “ Oh, all right,” he said. “ Come along then.” He handed his instrument to a neighbouring boy. “ Well, what is it ? ” he asked. We entered an empty schoolroom. “ Perhaps I may first,” I said, “ ask you to accept this.” It was a box of chocolates weighing half a pound and tastefully adorned with a lemon- coloured ribbon. “It is merely a token,” I proceeded, “ albeit I hope an acceptable one, of a desire to inaugurate friendly relations.” For a moment he stared at it with his mouth open and then made a rasping noise in the back of his throat. “ But look here,” he said, “ you don't mean to tell me that you've interrupted a game of football just to bring me in here and give me half a pound of chocolates? ” “Not wholly,” I said, “ nor even principally, though I am naturally a little wounded by your tone of voice. But I also desired to inform you 52 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. that you were the subject of a prevalent indignity from which personally I have strongly dissented/' “ Good God ! " he said. “ What on earth do you mean? " After flinching a second time, I lowered my voice a little. “ I thought you ought to know," I said, “ that you are very generally referred to — I trust without foundation — as Beery." For perhaps twelve, or it might have been thirteen, seconds, the silence was only broken by the cries of the footballers. But I observed that his cheeks were suffused with blood and his myopic eyes beginning to bulge. It was a repulsive sight, and then, like Mr. Muglington, he stood revealed in his true character. No less intoxicated than the former with the petty authority conferred by his position, his general conduct, as well as his verbiage, was even coarser and more debased. “ Look here," he said, “ young What's-your- name, I don't know your name, and I don't want to. But if I have any more of your insolence I shall report you to the headmaster. And now you can clear out and take your chocolates with you." Stung to the quick, and with the tears running down my cheeks, I nevertheless held up my hand. AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. 53 “ One moment,” I said. “ You have misappre¬ hended me, and it was perhaps foolish of me to have supposed that it could have been otherwise. But I must clearly point out to you, both for my own sake and that of the school to which we both belong, that it will be rather I who shall be obliged to report you for the language that I have listened to this day.” Florid to an extreme that I have seldom seen equalled, he opened his mouth once or twice in silence. Then he wiped his forehead with the back of his hand. “ I had rather flattered myself,” he said, “ on my temperance.” “ On the contrary,” I said, “ I am obliged to remind you that you have twice openly invoked the Deity.” “ Good God ! ” he gasped. I opened the door for him. “ That makes the third time,” I said. “ You will hear more of this.” I had preserved my self-control, but it was only with an effort that left me pitiably weak and wretched and induced a gastritis that robbed me of several minutes’ sleep as well as of most of my evening meal. Thanks, however, to a second and even more trenchant interview between my father and Mr. Lorton, during which it transpired that Mr. Beerthorpe was the 54 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. father of five unfortunate children, he too was obliged to apologise to me and give me an undertaking to restrain his blasphemy. But, as my father agreed, it was an apology obviously given with the utmost reluctance and affording no hope of the happier communion to which I had at one time looked forward. Meanwhile I had not neglected my fellow- students, unattractive to me as most of them were, and more than once had I offered my spiritual services to an inexperienced or erring class-mate. That these had been fruitless I am not prepared to say. But it was perhaps not surprising, considering the standard of the masters, that the general moral status of their pupils should have left almost everything to be desired. Such a rule, for example, as that forbidding the ingestion of sweetmeats during the hours set apart for study was daily infringed, not only by the younger boys, but by many far older than myself. Exhibitions, too, of personal violence were only too common in the playground, and I had even heard boys, presumably the sons of gentlemen, making use of the word damn.1 It was not until nearly half-term, however, under the eyes of Mr. Lorton, and in the most sacred hour of the scholastic week, that I 1 I repeat this with regret. But truth is often best served, I have found, by being completely outspoken. 55 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. suddenly became conscious of the existence of an evil that for a moment completely paralysed me. Himself an organiser rather than a scholar, a proprietor rather than a professor, Mr. Lorton confined himself, in respect of actual teaching, to the exposition of the Holy Scriptures. For this purpose he visited each class once a week in rotation, the text-book employed being the Lorton Bible for Schools, published by his brother, Mr. Chrysostom Lorton. We had been studying, I remember, the Second Book of Kings, and considering the evil reign of Pekahiah, when Mr. Lorton suddenly asked the head boy of the form if he could tell him the name of his successor. This was of course Pekah, the son of Remaliah, with whom I had been familiar for several years. But unfortunately my position in the centre of the class forbade my giving an immediate answer. Nevertheless I perceived, as boy after boy mutely revealed the depths of his ignorance, that I had probably been destined by the grace of Providence to become the means of their enlightenment. What was my horror, then, on this beautiful autumn day, with the November sunlight slanting through the window, to ob¬ serve Harold Harper, the boy on my left, and Henry Hancock, the boy on my right, each studying the Second Book of Kings under the 56 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. shelter conferred by his desk. Objectionable lads as I knew them both to be, I had never dreamed them to have been capable of this, and when Henry Hancock rose in his place and without a tremor said, “Pekah, son of Remaliah/, it was as though each syllable had been a knife deeply plunged into my very vitals. Pale with wrath I rose to my feet. “ Sir,” I cried, “ Henry Hancock was deceiving you. He read his answer from the open Scripture.” There was a deathly pause. “ And not only that,” I said, “ but Harold Harper was prepared to do the same.” Mr. Lorton removed his eye-glasses. “ Hancock and Harper,” he said, “ stand up.” They did so, but with marked reluctance. “ Hancock and Harper,” he said, “ is this true ? ” They were silent. But their faces betrayed them, as did Harper's Bible, that slipped to the floor. “ Hancock and Harper,” said Mr. Lorton, “ I am ashamed of you. You must each write me out fifty lines.” “ But, sir,” I cried, “ in justice to myself, who knew the correct answer without committing sacrilege, nay, in justice to my fellow-scholars, to say nothing of Holy Writ, surely these lads 57 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ, must be subjected to some less trivial and severer penalty/' Mr. Lorton readjusted his glasses. Then he removed them again and began to wipe them. “ Hanper and Harcock," he said, “ I mean Harcock and Hanper, as Carp has reminded you, you have sinned very grievously. But I hope — er — this publicity, this publicity, I say, will not be lacking in its due effect upon you." “ But, sir," I cried, “ these are mere words." “ They are very serious ones," he said, “ very serious ones. Also, as I said, you will each write me fifty lines. And now perhaps Smith Major can tell us who Argob was." Petrified by the levity with which the very owner of the school was able to endure so shattering an exposure, I remained standing for several seconds, wholly unable to utter a syllable. And when I sank at last, stunned and unsup¬ ported, into the seat from which I had so lately risen, it was as though my boyhood (and indeed this was actually the case) had been finally snatched from me for ever. Nor was this the end. For, when we emerged into the playground, I found myself surrounded by an opprobrious mob, evidently suborned by Harper and Hancock for the purposes of physical assault and battery. Thrust from one to the other, my collar was disarranged, I was several times smitten upon 58 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. the face, and it was only by the exercise of my utmost lung-power that I succeeded in attracting adult attention. Indeed I am almost certain that I observed Mr. Muglington and Mr. Beer- thorpe lurking supine behind a curtain, and it was by no less a person than my own father that I was ultimately removed from danger. Collecting an account a couple of streets away, he had instantly recognised my screams, and, abandoning everything, had rushed to my aid just as Mr. Lorton hurried into the play¬ ground. But my father was first, and never shall I forget the stentorian thunder of his tones. Seizing in each hand one of my lesser perse¬ cutors, he shook them like thistles before the wind, while time after time, breaking into his highest falsetto, he overtopped even my most piercing note. Colourless and stricken, a little group of masters stood huddled against the wall of the house, while an ever-growing stream of neighbours and local tradesmen began to throng every inch of the asphalt. Then, with a final and supreme imprecation, he flung the two ruffians into the midst of their fellows, and clasp¬ ing me to his bosom, clove his way through the now vociferously applauding multitude. It was perhaps the greatest moment of his career, but like myself he had to pay the penalty for it, and for the following two weeks we were confined AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. 59 in adjacent bedrooms, while my mother had to wait upon us night and day. Afterwards, shaken as he was, he had a third interview with Mr. Lorton, insisting upon and obtaining a public apology as the only alternative to legal proceedings. CHAPTER VI Reasons for remaining at Hopkinson House School. I pass from boyhood to early young manhood. Expeditions both urban and rural in the company of my dear father. An excellent and little-known diversion. Youthful adventures by sea and land. But what is to be my career on leaving school? Various alternatives prayer¬ fully considered. A vision is vouchsafed to us by Providence. A commercial Xtian. My first razor. I have frequently been asked, and I have but little doubt that hosts of my readers will put the same query to me, why I did not, after such an experience, transfer my attendance to another school. And I ought to say at once, perhaps, that both my father and myself were strongly disposed to this course. Having regard to the facts, however, that Hopkinson House School was the only one in the neighbourhood for sons of gentlemen ; that my moral position had now been defined there beyond any possibility of doubt; that the apologies elicited would pro¬ bably secure me in the future from any further corporal interference; and that both Simeon and Silas Whey had expressed their horror at my treatment — in view of these facts, we came to the conclusion that, for the present at any 60 61 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. rate, I had better remain there. That it could never be the same to me was of course the case. But then my hopes had not been extravagant. And although, as I have indicated, my boyhood had been ruthlessly plucked from me like a geranium in full bud, my early young manhood found me securer than ever in the approval of a wise and discerning Providence. Apart from an occasional boil, too, and a somewhat intractable and disfiguring affection known as acne, my health was giving rise to less anxiety than for some time past, and I have always looked back on the next two years as amongst the happiest of my life. Necessarily thrown, as the result of what had happened, very largely upon my own resources, I was agreeably surprised to find that these were even richer and more varied than I had sup¬ posed ; and I frequently walked, on a Saturday afternoon, as far as Dulwich or Blackheath, thoroughly contented with the company of none other than myself. What was my joy, too, to discover, a couple of weeks after my fifteenth birthday, that my voice had broken into a full-toned bass that promised to be even more powerful than my father's; and many a long hour did we spend at the harmonium together in friendly competition over our favourite hymns. Though he was rather more 62 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. accurate than myself in the matter of tune, in the matter of time there was little to choose between us, while in the actual volume of sound produced I was soon my father's equal, if not his superior. Nor was singing our only mutual occupation, for once a month, thanks to my father's generosity, we would journey to such a place of instructional interest as the Tower of London or Sir John Spane's Museum. We even visited, I remember, the National Gallery of Art, with its remarkable collection of hand-painted pictures ; and I can still recall the delicacy with which my father would intervene to shelter me from any that contained an undraped female figure. Perhaps our happiest times, however, were those spent with Nature during my father’s annual fortnight's holiday, when we would usually procure lodgings at some such salubrious resort as Clacton-on-Sea or Cliftonville near Margate. Here we would abandon ourselves to the contemplation of the waves, and here, under my father's skilful tuition, I became quite an adept at an entrancing pursuit less well known, I think, than it should be. Consisting in the first place of the selection of a flat-shaped stone — itself often a gleeful and difficult task — it then becomes the object of the AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. 63 participators in the game to propel this sea¬ wards across the surface of the ocean. Being heavier than water, it would naturally be sup¬ posed that at the first impact with the latter the stone would sink ; and indeed, if projected by an unskilled player, this is what usually even¬ tuates. As I was happy to demonstrate, how¬ ever, to our Sunday School mistresses only last year at Southend, in the hands of a careful and experienced performer this is by no means necessarily the case. Supporting the stone, with its flatter surface downwards, on the flexed middle finger of the thrower's hand, his (or her) forefinger should lie along its circumference, the thumb gently resting on its superior surface. It should then be so cast as to travel horizontally, its flat surface parallel to the surface of the water, with the surprising result that, when at last it drops, it bounces into the air again and pro¬ ceeds onwards. Nay, it may even, in the hands of the most expert, repeat this process two or three times, to the intense and delighted fascination of those who have been privileged to witness him. Not lacking in the element of competition, yet devoid of all possibility of personal danger, affording healthful exercise, but at the same time immune from the perils of over-exertion, it has always seemed strange to me that, up to the 64 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. present, it has played so small a part in our national life. An island community, here if anywhere is a diversion that should surely appeal to us; and I for one should rejoice to see the day when, instead of the football ground and the tennis pitch, our coasts should be thronged with eager young men and women enjoying this hygienic and innocent pastime. Nor did we confine ourselves, while at the sea-side, merely to terrestrial amusement, and we would frequently indulge, for perhaps a quarter of an hour, in the enjoyable practice of pedal immersion. Wholly precluded, of course, for constitutional reasons, from the fuller development of this art involved in swim¬ ming, we nevertheless found this to be a most laughable and even exciting occupation; and I can recall at least two occasions when, owing to a momentary inadversion, our rolled-up trousers became partially submerged. A smart run home, however, a cup of hot milk, and immediate retirement to bed sufficed, in both instances, to protect us from any untoward results. With my two friends, also, Simeon and Silas Whey, I had many hours of fruitful companion¬ ship. Equally segregated with myself from the majority of their schoolfellows, though less 65 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. upon moral and intellectual than purely physical grounds, they were yet earnest and high-minded lads with many notably endearing qualities. Reticent to an extreme, partly, in the case of Silas, owing to an initial difficulty in articulating anything at all, and in the case of Simeon, owing to a kind of laryngeal click from which he is still unfortunately a sufferer, they appeared to find a comfort in my own natural eloquence that I was only too glad to bestow upon them. In return for this, their ample pocket-money was always entirely at my disposal, and many a pound of toffee and Turkish delight was I able to enjoy at their expense. Like myself un¬ addicted to athletics, and thereby preserved from its associated vices, they would saunter for hours with me discussing some favourite Bible character or humming in unison some well-known hymn ; and we were further united, if that were possible, in our eventual confirmation by the self-same Bishop. Nevertheless, as I have said, it was chiefly upon myself that I had to depend for company ; and in my walks abroad, my studies of the shop-windows, and my exploration of the neigh¬ bouring churches, my closest comrade was my¬ self, and I can honestly say that I have never regretted it. Nor must it be supposed that the hours so spent were entirely devoid of legitimate F 66 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. adventure. On two or three occasions, for instance, I was abruptly addressed by some surprised or suspicious verger, and once, owing to ignorance of its usual closing hours, I was incarcerated in a local cemetery. Confined by railings too lofty to scale and too narrowly approximated to permit egress, for a few moments the prospects were sufficiently black to cause a sensible quickening of my pulse. A felicitous remark, however, addressed to an under-gardener, secured my exit by a private gate, and I hurried home, not without relief, but none the worse for my little mis¬ chance. Nor shall I forget the thrill, perhaps a trifle guilty, with which I discovered, soon after I was sixteen, how to descend from a vehicle in motion without the sacrifice of an erect position. Hitherto, like my father, when travelling by tram or omnibus, I had always insisted upon complete immobility prior both to entrance into and departure from one of these public conveyances ; and many a conductor had been reported by us both for failing to secure the requisite lack of motion. Upon my sixteenth birthday, however, perceiving that the omnibus in which I was journeying could not be brought to a standstill at the desired position, I decided to alight from it notwith- AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. 67 standing, and boldly descended from its posterior step. Naturally leaving this at right angles, what was my rather rueful amazement to discover myself, in the next instant, lying upon my side in the roadway. At first I imagined that I must have stepped upon something slippery or that some such article must have been adhering to my footwear. But a minute examination both of these and the roadway failed to reveal any such cause. Completely baffled, I made a second attempt, but with an equally discomforting result, and time after time, in spite of my utmost efforts, I was the victim of a similar loss of equilibrium. Many a less determined and timider lad would indeed have given up the venture, and again I ought to confess, perhaps, in view of municipal regulations, that my pertinacity was not wholly defensible. Robbed of candour, however, such a record as the present would lose the greater part of its spiritual value; and while I am prepared to admit that, in this particular instance, my youthful conduct may have been open to mis- judgment, I cannot concede that it was in any degree incompatible with the highest expression of the Xtian character. Refusing to be cast down, therefore, save in the most literal sense, I continued dauntlessly with my efforts, to be 68 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. rewarded at last with a final success no less gratifying than entire. Failing to remain up¬ right in departing from the moving vehicle either at right angles to it or with my back towards the driver, I found that by facing in the same direction I could not only descend from it with greater immunity, but that by running after it, as it were, for two or three steps, I could do so with complete integrity. Needless to say, having acquired this knowledge, I only made use of it in an occasional emergency, and for some years now, owing to declining success, I have discontinued the practice altogether. With the unfolding of my seventeenth year, however, I was definitely approaching the great problems of adult life, and much of my time now began to be occupied with the contemplation of my future career. Thanks to the tempered foresight of my father, a firm believer as a rule in unlimited families, in the exceptional circum¬ stances of his own case he had refrained from further parentage. On his demise, therefore, as he had given me to understand, I should inherit some two thousand pounds, this being the amount to which his insurance and savings would by then probably have accrued. Should my mother survive him, I should of course be expected, and would gladly, as I assured him, make her some allowance. But her health was 69 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. so precarious as to render this sacrifice a very improbable necessity. Devoid of anxiety, therefore, as to ultimate no less than immediate penury, I could afford to regard the future with an adequate deliberation, and I need scarcely say, perhaps, that the Church of England was the subject of my first and most prolonged consideration. Financially inadequate as were even its highest rewards, I was yet so adapted to its every need that both my father and myself would have been willing to overlook this very serious disadvantage. But to become ordained presupposed an examination, and I had been seriously handicapped in this particular respect by a proven disability, pro¬ bably hereditary in origin, to demonstrate my culture in so confined a form. For a similar reason, even had I been attracted to it, the profession of Medicine would have been unavailable, while from that of the Law, nobler in every way, I was equally precluded. For some time, however, we canvassed very care¬ fully the strong claims of Diplomacy, for which in many ways, as my father agreed with me, I was most admirably fitted. And I am still convinced that both as attache and ambassador I should have found congenial and Xtian employment. Unhappily, however, such a career involved the acquirement of the French 70 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. language, with attendant dangers, to which my father could not persuade himself to expose me. Whether he was right in this is perhaps open to argument, and I have since met several apparently devout men who have not only spoken this tongue with reported fluency, but have deliberately sojourned in the country of its origin. Personally, however, while reluctant to condemn them, I must confess to sharing my father's views, and I am happy in the knowledge that the vicar of my parish holds precisely the same opinion. Abandoning Diplomacy, there¬ fore, we considered the Consolidated Water Board, in which my father of course had con¬ siderable influence. But here, as in the Church of England, the emoluments were unsatisfactory, while the spiritual opportunities, of course, were far more restricted. Thus step by step, as though by the hand of Providence — and indeed, as my father said, it could have been by no other hand — we were slowly led to the conclusion that in some branch of Commerce lay my future destiny. Requiring no previous examinations, with liberal, nay illimitable, monetary possibilities, this was the field — the highest, perhaps, of all — that was now unfolded before our gaze. For a few moments, I remember, we sat there speechless, one on each side of the parlour table. Then my father 71 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. rose and stood for another few moments with his right hand resting on the harmonium. In his face there was a great joy, not unmixed with solemnity. His eyes looked beyond me out towards eternity. Indeed it was to eternity that he addressed himself. “ Augustus/' he said, “ my son Augustus — a Xtian tradesman, preferably wholesale." My mother came in to announce the supper. But almost impatiently he motioned her aside. “ Oh, can't you see," he cried, “ that we're standing on Pisgah? " For a moment, not comprehending him, she stared at his feet. Then very softly she with¬ drew, and he came toward me with outstretched hands. “ A Xtian magnate," he said, “a commercial Xtian — what better could I have desired for you? " Impulsively I kissed him, perhaps a little too impulsively. But he scarcely flinched as he received the impact, merely remarking that, upon the next day, he would present me with my first razor. Nor did he fail to do so, partly reminded by myself, and partly by the appear¬ ance, early the next morning, of a slight but painful urticaria or nettlerash in the region of our most vehement facial adjustment. But 72 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. that was a penalty, as he several times assured me, that many a father would have been glad to pay, and one that yielded, in less than a fortnight, to an inunction embracing the oxide of zinc. CHAPTER VII A further vision is vouchsafed to us by Providence. Mr. Chrysostom Lorton and the sources of his wealth. The debt owed to me by Mr. Septimus Lorton. Interview with Mr. and Mrs. Septimus Lorton. Mr. Septimus Lorton's disgraceful attitude. My father is compelled to be frank with him. What I discovered in Greenwich Park. Manifestly as it had been Providence that had thus revealed to us the general sphere of my future activities, it was no less clearly the same beneficent Agency that determined their actual channel; and it has always seemed to me peculiarly appropriate that the particular enterprise with which I was to be first connected should have been suggested to my father during the process of family prayers. This took place, according to our usual cus¬ tom, immediately after the conclusion of our evening meal and consisted of the singing by my father and myself of two or three hymns or sacred choruses, followed by the reading on the part of my father of a chapter of Holy Scripture, the whole being concluded by one of those extemporary prayers in the composition of 73 74 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. which my father was so skilled. For the pur¬ poses of the Scripture reading the volume generally used was a large Bible inherited by my father, but on the evening in question, owing to an accident with some stewed fruit, this was absent at a neighbouring bookbinder's. My father had therefore borrowed with my glad permission my copy of the Lorton Bible for Schools, and it was in opening this that he caught sight of the words “ eighteenth edition '' on the first page. That something had perturbed him was instantly apparent both to my mother and myself, not only on account of the sudden tremor that became visible in his left hand but of the extraordinary rapidity with which he read the appointed chapter, and the verbal errors that consequently ensued. His subse¬ quent prayer too was so brief that we were scarcely upon our knees before he had leapt to his feet again, and my mother and myself, indeed, were still kneeling when he began to expound the idea that had been vouchsafed to him. “ I have it," he cried. “ It's just been sent to me. Chrysostom Lorton. That's the man. Eighteen editions — that's what his Bible's gone into, and none of the authors with any royalty rights ! " 75 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. Nor was that all, for in addition, as I have said, to being the elder brother of Mr. Septimus Lorton, he was not only the proprietor of the well-known Beulah , perhaps the most popular of weekly religious journals, but his Peeping Up Series for Children , devotional stories with coloured illustrations, were familiar objects upon the nursery book-shelves of every evangelical household. Moreover he was the medium through which were issued to the world many millions of hortatory pamphlets, while the coun¬ ters of his show-room in Paternoster Row were heaped with every kind of Protestant literature. Such then was the man and such the under¬ taking, not only Xtian but lucrative, that by a chance gesture, or so it might have seemed, now stood beckoning before us; and it was only necessary, as my father justly said, for his brother Septimus to do the rest. But would he ? I was at first doubtful. A weak man, he was also inert. And it did not of course follow that because he used his brother's Bible he was on intimate or influential terms with him. This much was clear, however, that as the oldest pupil in his school, and in view of the treatment that I had received from his subordinates, he was under an obligation to me that neither my father nor myself could morally allow ourselves to remit. And although for reasons that I have 76 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. already mentioned I had not advanced from my original class, in the strictly ethical sense, by his own admission, I was facile princeps.1 “A good boy,” said Mr. Lorton, “a very, very good boy, or shall we say, now that he has begun to shave, an extremely admirable young man.” This was upon the next evening, the penulti¬ mate evening of my last term at school, when both my father and myself were sitting in Mr. Lorton's study for the purpose indicated above. “ It is useless to deny, of course,” my father had said, “ that we have been seriously dis¬ appointed in your school, or to suggest that either my son or myself will be able to look back upon it with approval. Nor can I profess to be wholly convinced as to the necessity that you have so often explained to me of promoting your pupils from class to class according to the results of an examination. At the same time I am open-minded enough to recognise that this method has the sanction of custom, and to forbear from arraigning you for the consequently meagre position that my son still occupies in your establishment. Refusing to accept the standard, I can afford to ignore its results. But of this, Mr. Lorton, I am completely con- 1 Easily first. 77 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. fident — that if the index had been a moral or religious one, my boy Augustus would have been second to none.” Here my father paused for a moment to expectorate some phlegm, and it was then that Mr. Lorton used the words I have quoted. “ A good boy,” he said, as his wife entered the room, “ a very, very good boy, or shall we say, now that he has begun to shave, an extremely admirable young man.” A heavily-constructed woman of immense height, with prominent cheek-bones and a bovine chin, it was generally understood that Mr. Lorton had selected her chiefly on account of her income. And neither my father nor myself had ever been able to detect in her the least sign of intelligence. Happily her intrusion, however, was but momentary, and my father was able once more to proceed. “ I am obliged to you for your tribute,” he said, “ and if, as you must surely admit, my son's influence in your school has been inestim¬ able, you will the more readily agree with me in adopting a reciprocal attitude towards the important question of his future employment.” As we both observed, Mr. Lorton’s expression changed a little. But his voice retained its professional amiability. “ Oh, precisely,” he said, “ precisely, although 78 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. you must understand, of course, that my influence is strictly limited/' “ Nevertheless," said my father, “ I am de¬ pending on its exertion to the utmost boundary of its capacity. And I should be glad to learn what openings you have in view for one to whom so admittedly you are a debtor." At this point Mrs. Lorton returned and took up a position on her husband's left flank. Mr. Lorton glanced at her before replying. “ Well, of course," he said, “ the problem is a somewhat difficult one." “ It would be easier," said Mrs. Lorton, “ if we were an employment agency." My father bowed. “ That I fully appreciate," he said. “ But I may at least assume, I trust, that you have considered the problem." “ Oh, deeply," said Mr. Lorton, “ very deeply, in fact I ought to say, perhaps, profoundly." My father leaned back, folding his arms. “ Then may I enquire," he asked, “ with what result ? " Again Mr. Lorton glanced at his wife. But her slab-like face remained unstirred. “ Well, I can hardly say," he replied, “ that as yet — er — we have come to a definite con¬ clusion. The moral qualities, you see, though extremely valuable - " 79 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. “ For ultimate salvation,” said my father, “ they are essential.” “ Oh, of course,” said Mr. Lorton, “ of course. But in the meantime, you know, and taken by themselves - ” He paused for a moment, and then his face brightened. “ Have you ever thought,” he said, “ of making your son a missionary? ” A sort of sigh emanated from his wife. “ In a warm country,” she said, “ a long way off? ” Mr. Lorton nodded. “ Healthy but remote,” he said, “ where his moral enthusiasm could have full play? ” “ And where his personal appearance,” said Mrs. Lorton, “ could scarcely fail to be such a protection to him ? ” “ Quite so,” said Mr. Lorton. “ I can con¬ ceive of no one eating dear Augustus.” Mrs. Lorton smiled not unkindly. “ No one at all,” she said, “ not even the most debased.” Afterwards, as we discovered, these remarks lacked sincerity. But for the moment we were not ungrateful. Colouring with pleasure my father lifted his hand. “ I am again obliged to you,” he said, “ for your tribute.” Mr. Lorton rose to his feet, evidently 80 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. under the impression that the interview had ended. “ Oh, not at all,” he said, “ not at all, we are only too happy to have been of any assistance.” He moved towards the door. But my father motioned him back. Somewhat less agreeably, I thought, he sat down again. Allowing him a moment for this, my father then proceeded. “ Sensible as I am,” he said, “ both of the justice, and I may say discernment, of your suggestion, neither on financial nor hygienic grounds am I able to entertain it; and in¬ deed in its main outlines the province of my son's future has already been delineated for us. Second to none in my admiration of the noble calling to which you have referred, surely they are nobler who have created the means by which our missionaries subsist, and who, of the wealth that their efforts have amassed, continue to support these emissaries of religion. It is therefore to Commerce that my son has been called, but in his first intro¬ duction to this sacred field, we have only thought it right to afford you the opportunity of being the possible instrument of Providence.” “ I see,” said Mr. Lorton. “ That is very kind of you.” “ Take away the number,” said his wife, “ that you first thought of.” 81 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. My father stared at her. But she appeared to be in a kind of stupor, and it seemed more merciful to avert his eyes. “ It has in fact occurred to us,” he said, “ or rather to me — for it was to me personally that the idea was vouchsafed — that your brother Chrysostom would be glad to hear that my son's services were now available." For two or three moments Mr. Lorton seemed to struggle for breath. Then he made a mean¬ ingless sound like that of a small animal. “ My brother C — Chrysostom ? " he said at last. “ But in what capacity would you propose to offer your son ? " My father smiled somewhat dryly. “ I should hardly have thought offer," he said, “ was the right word." Mrs. Lorton looked at her husband. “ He means that dear Augustus," she said, ” would allow Chrysostom to approach him." “ Provided," said my father, “ that he gave sufficient assurances. Of course we should look forward to an eventual partnership." “ And not to succession ? " asked Mrs. Lorton. “ Only in the event," said my father, “ of Mr. Chrysostom's decease." Mr. Lorton wiped his forehead. “ That's most considerate," he said, “ most considerate." G 82 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. “ Then perhaps I can rely/' said my father, “ on your taking immediate steps to arrange an interview for us with your brother.” But Mr. Lorton shook his head. “ I'm very sorry,” he replied. “ But that's quite impossible. For, in the first place, my brother's business is a very complicated and peculiar one, and in the second I regret to say that I have absolutely no influence with him. In fact — er — well, to tell the truth, any testi¬ monial from me would be worse than useless.” “ Oh, worse,” said Mrs. Lorton, “ much worse. And besides, he has no vacancies.” For perhaps a quarter of a minute there was a dead silence, and then very slowly my father rose to his feet. “ So I am to understand,” he said, “ that you entirely refuse to approach your brother on my son's behalf? ” With a pitiable gesture Mr. Lorton shrugged his shoulders, and the clock on the mantelpiece made an insolent crowing noise. Trembling, but composed, my father swept it to the floor together with several of its adjacent ornaments. Then very quietly, but with increasing emphasis, he began to address Mr. Lorton. It was a painful task. It is always a painful task to confront such a character with its own portrait. But it was a duty from which, I am proud to 83 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. say, I never knew my father to shrink. Nor did he cease, on the present occasion, until the last iota of it had been discharged, though such, as I have shown, was his verbal economy that this was completed in fifteen minutes. Then with his hand resting upon my shoulder, for he was still the taller by two and a half inches, we turned our backs, as we thought for ever, upon Mr. and Mrs. Septimus Lorton. I have said for ever. But though, as the event proved, this was a mis judgment on both our parts, it must not be assumed that either my father or myself had lost his self-con¬ fidence. For the moment, it was true, the path seemed obstructed, the vision obscured, the end denied. But neither of us doubted that, by means yet unrevealed, I should be brought at last to the destined haven, although, as I must admit, neither of us foresaw the tremen¬ dous speed with which this would be accom¬ plished. Such was the case, however, for when brood¬ ing alone, upon the very next evening, in Greenwich Park, a familiar voice pierced my consciousness and suddenly awakened my every faculty. It was a warm but cloudy April dusk, and I was sitting upon a seat under a large chestnut tree, when I began to hear again, to my disgust and astonishment, the detested voice 84 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. of Mr. Septimus Lorton. Rapidly withdrawing myself behind the tree, I then observed him to be approaching my seat, evidently engrossed in his conversation with a medium-sized female who was accompanying him. For a moment, as was only natural, I resolved to transport myself as far as possible from his neighbourhood. But by some impulse — I realize now, of course, that this could only have had one origin — I merely performed perhaps a quarter of a revolu¬ tion round the commanding trunk of the chest¬ nut tree. By this manoeuvre, not, I think, uningenious, I thus concealed myself from his vision while at the same time conferring upon myself such possible advantages as might accrue from observation. Nor was the event to prove me unjustified. For hardly had he arrived at the seat that I had vacated when he proceeded, accompanied by his companion, himself to sit down upon it. Being a slow runner my position now was one of the extremest peril, and in the event of detection, I could only have relied upon my happily exceptional vocal powers. But a closer inspection of Mr. Lorton's companion and some¬ thing in the tones in which he was addressing her combined in bidding me hold my ground entirely regardless of personal danger. Indeed from the beginning, I think, it was less the 85 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. physical than the moral contingencies that dis¬ turbed me. For I had instantly recognized, to my profound discomfort, that the person accom¬ panying him was not Mrs. Septimus Lorton. A woman of much slenderer and more graceful build, she had a pink complexion and hazel eyes, with a rather large but conceivably allur¬ ing mouth, and a considerable quantity of yellowish hair. Her name, it appeared, was Nina, the i being pronounced as if it were an e, and it was quickly apparent to me that, for the first time, I was in the presence of the gravest human vice. Nor have I ever, perhaps, entirely recovered from the enormous shock of that discovery. For though I had been aware, of course, from my studies of Holy Scripture, that such things had occurred in the Middle East, and had even deduced from contemporary news¬ papers their occasional survival in the British Islands, I had never dreamed it possible that here, in a public park in the Xtian London of my own experience, a married man could thus openly sit with his arm round a female who was not his wife. Trembling all over, I was afraid for two or three moments that I was about to relapse into unconsciousness, and that I did not do so I can only attribute to the amazing discovery that followed. For no sooner had Mr. Lorton 86 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. taken his seat than the petrifying fact became manifest that his fellow-criminal was not only married herself but was actually the wife of his brother Chrysostom.1 Afterwards, as was inevit¬ able perhaps, I utterly broke down, but not until I had made full notes of their conversation, learned that Mrs. Chrysostom was supposed to be out shopping, and observed them kiss one another several times. Then, pale and dis¬ traught, blinded with tears, and scarcely indeed able to suppress my sobs, I hurried home, and within less than an hour had buried my face in my father's waistcoat. “ Oh, father," I cried, “ father," and though he had misinterpreted my convulsions, I shall never forget the tenderness with which he signalled to my mother to fetch a basin as quickly as possible. Nor was he less sympa¬ thetic when I had succeeded in convincing him that my paroxysms were spiritual rather than gastric, for smoothing my hair with his unoccu¬ pied hand, he at once readjusted my head to its former position. “ My poor boy," he said, “ my poor Augustus. Tell me what's happened. Take your time. There, there now. I've sent your mother away. But she's left the basin here in case." 1 I am happy to say that this pernicious family is now completely extinct. 87 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. “ Oh, sin,” I cried, “ sin — unbelievable sin in Greenwich Park.” I felt my father’s abdomen give a violent heave. “ In Greenwich Park ? ” he asked. “ Never ? ” “ Oh, yes,” I cried, “ yes. Would that it were no. But it was not no.” My father bent over me, patting my head. “ My poor boy,” he said. “ What sort of sin? ” “ Oh, the worst,” I said, “ the worst. It was Mr. Lorton and Mrs. Chrysostom.” “ Good Heavens,” said my father, “ Mr. Lorton?” “ Mr. Septimus,” I said, “ and Mrs. Chrysos¬ tom.” “ But what were they doing ? ” asked my father. Burning all over, I replied that they had been kissing. “ Kissing,” he said, “ kissing? You mean to tell me you saw them kissing ? ” “ Oh, father,” I said, “ several times, with mutual expressions of passionate regard.” I had now reared my head from the lower part of his waistcoat, and it would have been hard to say which of us was the deeper scarlet. Then my father covered his eyes. “ Mutual expressions ? ” he whispered. “ Do you remember them ? ” 88 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. With a shaking hand I offered him my pocket- book. “ They are there,” I said. “ I wrote them down.” Like a tornado he tore them from my grasp. “ My darling,” he read. “ Oh, Septimus. Give me another. Well, just one. My only darling. Light of my heart. Do you know what your lips are like? No, tell me.” Then a great light shone in my father's eyes. “ Providence has delivered them,” he said, “ into our hands.” For a moment I was silent. Then I rose to my feet. “ I had rather thought,” I said, “ that might be the case.” “ Oh, it is,” said my father. “ It is. Do you remember those beautiful words of David's, ‘ the righteous shall rejoice when he seeth the vengeance : he shall wash his feet in the blood of the wicked ' ? ” “Not only do I remember them,” I said, “ but had you not quoted them, I should certainly have done so myself.” “ We'll wash them to-night,” said my father. “ Put on your cap. No, it would perhaps be better to wear your bowler,” and five minutes later we were standing once more on the front¬ door step of Hopkinson House. CHAPTER VIII Second interview with Mr. Septimus Lorton. But now the tables are turned. A pitiful exhibition. My father demands guarantees. He will write a letter to Mrs. Chrysostom Lorton. My father’s ordeal. When it was dark. Save that it became the means so strangely selected for my early entrance into Xtian commerce, I do not propose to linger over the comparatively brief but effective interview that ensued. At first refused admission, the words Greenwich Park sent as a message by the ser¬ vant sufficed to bring Mr. Lorton hastily but reluctantly and unaccompanied to the front door. From there he conveyed us to one of the smaller and more distant schoolrooms, and it soon became obvious, in spite of his tentative denials, and even more despicable evasions, that my father and myself were the complete masters of the situation. It was true, of course, that he tried to temporize with the pathetic bravado of the exposed sinner. “ But even if it were the case,” he said, “ which I am not prepared to admit, that I was in Greenwich Park with Mrs. Chrysostom, 89 90 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. do you suppose that, were I to deny it, my brother would believe you for a moment ? ” Fulfilled as he was with a Xtian indignation, my father was unable to suppress a smile. “ I imagine that at least,” he said, “ he would be interested in my son's knowledge that she was supposed to be shopping in Kensington.” Mr. Septimus Lorton protruded the tip of his tongue in a vain endeavour to moisten his lips. “ And he would also be interested,” I said, “ to meet the lame newspaper-seller from whom she obtained change for ten shillings.” My father nodded. “ That cannot often happen,” he said, “ and my son tells me that the man picked up one of her gloves.” “ Yes,” I said, “ and followed her into the station with it, where she gave him a sixpence, and he called her a pretty lady.” My father looked thoughtfully at the tips of his fingers. “ From which I infer,” he said, “ that he could probably identify her.” Mr. Lorton passed one of his hands over the pale green surface of his cheek. “ But, my dear sir,” he said, “ my dear sir, even suppose, I say, that without — er — pre¬ judice, Mrs. Chrysostom had so far honoured me 91 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. as to accompany me for a walk in the park you mention, surely that is not necessarily an indiscreet act in view of the fact that I am her husband's brother." Again my father smiled. “ But a brother, you must remember, whose testimonial would be worse than useless." For a moment Mr. Lorton glanced from side to side with the bestial expression of a hunted rat. Then he spoke huskily, after licking his lips again and listening for a second or two over his left shoulder. “ Perhaps I was rather hasty," he said, “ rather hasty. In fact I had — er — already begun to reconsider that." “ I am happy to hear it," said my father. “ In fact," said Mr. Lorton, “ I think some¬ thing could be done." My father bowed again. He was no longer smiling. I had seldom, indeed, seen him look so grave. “ For the sake of your school," he said, “ to say nothing of your soul, and for the sake of your brother's business, I sincerely hope so." “ Oh, I think so," said Mr. Lorton, “ I think so. Now, let me see. How could I be most helpful? " My father cleared his throat. “ Deeply as I am inclined," he said, “ to 92 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. expose this iniquity to the uttermost, and irreparable as has been its injury to my son's sensibilities, I am yet prepared to concede you the opportunity of retaining at least the sem¬ blance of your good name. But for my son I must claim every guarantee. Upon my son's future your own is dependent." I dare not record that Mr. Lorton smiled. Let me rather say that he exposed his incisors. “ Dear Augustus," he said, “ I'm sure he'll succeed. I'll send a line to my brother's wife." My father's expression never changed. “ Do you apprehend then," he inquired, “ that she can secure him the requisite posi¬ tion? " “ Far more probably," said Mr. Lorton, “ than I. My — er — Mr. Chrysostom Lorton is deeply attached to her." My father's silence was perhaps more elo¬ quent than any merely verbal condemnation. “ I — er — I'll write to-night," said Mr. Lorton. “ Perhaps," said my father, “ you'd be so kind as to give us Mrs. Chrysostom Lorton's address." Mr. Lorton hesitated. “Oh — er — certainly," he said. “Pater¬ noster Towers, Enfield." My father made a note of this in his diary. 93 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. “ We shall call upon her,” he said, “ to¬ morrow at noon.” Mr. Lorton emitted a sort of gargling sound. “ I— er— I'll tell her,” he said. “ She'll be delighted.” Strong in the Lord, therefore, and indeed in comparatively good spirits considering the vile¬ ness with which we had been brought into contact, we returned home to a belated but none the less substantial meal; and it was not until this had been absorbed and my mother was in the scullery, cleansing the dishes that had contained it, that my father referred again to the interview that had been arranged for the following day. “ Although it seemed wise,” he said, “ to suggest to that creature that both you and I would be present at it, I am afraid that my obligations to the Consolidated Water Board will in reality prevent me from being there, and that you must be prepared therefore, my dear Augustus, to face that female alone.” I bowed my head. “ I pray that you may trust me,” I said. With a slightly increased colour my father rose to his feet. “ I have no doubt of it,” he said. “ But at the same time — at the same time — oh, Augus¬ tus, Augustus ! ” 94 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. Deeply moved, he advanced two or three paces and leaned heavily against the har¬ monium. 4 4 You see, my boy,” he continued — at what a cost I could only afterwards guess — “ with this interview you will be definitely entering upon a new and most perilous phase of experi¬ ence. For the first time — I must ask you to turn down the lamp — for the first time, as a marriageable adult, you will be called upon to encounter, face to face, a woman of fierce and unbridled passions.” Here he paused for a moment and I could feel the floor shaking. “ Oh, father,” I cried. “ Can I not spare you ? ” “ No, no,” he said. “ I must see it through.” I bent forward to steady the lamp, and at the same time I turned it lower. “ Mind the wick,” he said. “ Oh, father,” I cried, “ do you mean that she may want to kiss me? ” “ Oh, Augustus,” he said, “ or even more.” “ Oh, father,” I cried. “ Is there anything more? ” He swallowed once or twice. “ Oh, Augustus,” he said. I fear this chapter must remain unfinished. CHAPTER IX Effect upon my father of his disclosure. My Xtian confidence in journeying to Enfield. Paternoster Towers and its mistress. Unfortunate detachment of my posterior trouser-buttons. Triumphant success of my interview. A kindly parlourmaid and her male friend. I secure a position under Mr. Chrysostom Lorton. Melancholy death of Silas Whey. Profoundly, and indeed permanently, as it had shaken him — when I turned up the lamp again my father was an old man — I cannot say that the substance of his communication was entirely unfamiliar to me, or that I had not been aware, to a certain extent, of a new sig¬ nificance attaching to my person. Appreciably over five feet in height, with a pectoral girth of twenty-six inches, my abdominal measurement (fully clothed of course) was but little less than a yard, and for some time I had been unable to help noticing that I was not unattractive to the opposite sex. I had in fact deemed it advisable to inform Emily Smith, who, as I have said, was somewhat my senior, that while I was still agreeable to remain her companion, there could be no question between us of ultimate matri¬ mony; and I had several times discussed with 95 96 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. Simeon and Silas Whey the qualities to be demanded from a possible wife. Even had I not been fortified, therefore, with the details, imparted at such a price to me by my father, I should not have felt myself wholly unequipped in confronting Mrs. Chrysostom Lorton; and, as it was, I made the journey to Enfield serene in the knowledge of my instructed manhood. This was the more fortunate in that, devoid of anxiety, I was enabled to profit very fully from an expedition considerably the most involved that I had ever engaged upon unaccompanied. Nothing would have been easier, for instance, than, dazed by its magnitude, to have wandered for hours in Liverpool Street Station, whereas a few courteous and clearly-phrased questions soon led my footsteps to the appropriate plat¬ form. Similarly, had I been engrossed with a fearful apprehension of the ordeal that awaited me, I might have been blind to the interesting objects that presented themselves to my car¬ riage window; whereas I was moved to pity and apprehension by the rough streets of Bethnal Green, pricked to audible curiosity by the uncommon nomenclature of Seven Sisters, agreeably reminded, at Bruce Grove, of the well-known Caledonian monarch, and so over¬ come by mirth, as we drew into Lower 97 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. Edmonton, at a sudden recollection of John Gilpin that an elderly female who was sitting opposite me hastily left the compartment. I was able to observe, too, with satisfaction the busy and prosperous aspect of Enfield, and although, as I drew near to the mansion of Mr. Chrysostom Lorton, I was naturally a little sobered by the imminence of my task, I was gratified to perceive in Paternoster Towers a concrete testimony to the worth of his enter¬ prise. Solidly constructed of red brick and surrounded by well-trimmed lawns and flower¬ beds, it was further adhered to by a couple of large conservatories and approached by a broad, gravelled drive. Nor was I less satisfied by the humble and respectful demeanour of the good- looking parlourmaid who opened the door, and who had proceeded, having taken my hat and stick, to admit me to her mistress's boudoir. “ Mrs. Lorton," she said, “ will be down in a minute." “ I thank you," I replied. “ I will await her arrival." Favourably as I had been impressed, how¬ ever, it must not be assumed that I had in any degree relaxed my guard; and though I was aware, of course, that I held every advantage I made a rapid survey of the contents of the room. H 98 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. Of no great size, it had evidently been furn¬ ished to minister almost entirely to the senses, and it was perhaps not surprising that I was unable to discern a single text upon its walls. Upon a parquet floor polished to a degree that was almost lascivious in its smoothness, elabor¬ ate table-legs stood reflected and a voluptuous rug or two solicited the feet. Upon the mantel¬ piece stood an oval mirror, indecently sur¬ rounded by likenesses of Cupid, and beside it a nude female, fashioned in bronze, was extracting a thorn from her left calf. Flushing involuntarily, I turned away from these only to observe upon a French-looking writing- table a large photograph of an elderly man, pathetically signed “ Your aff. Chrysostom/' Beneath this, in a confusion that was probably characteristic, lay a half-finished letter to some¬ body called Loo-Loo and several others addressed to “ Dearest Nina ” that I did not hesitate to peruse. Most of these, as I discovered, were but little more than the vapid productions of obvious worldlings. But two were invitations to card parties and one, to my horror, con¬ tained the word “ blasted." This was the one, indeed, upon which I was engaged when the door of the room was abruptly thrown open with a lack of refinement that I ought perhaps to have expected, but that for AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. 99 a moment completely unnerved me. In fact it did more. For in the effort to recover my¬ self the rug upon which I was standing slid across the floor leaving behind it not only the upper and middle but the lower middle portions of my frame. Poised in mid-air, my feet having accompanied the rug, I was entirely unable to support these, and was obliged in consequence to assume with the extremest suddenness a sedentary position upon the par¬ quet. Nor was that all. For when, at the third attempt, I succeeded in once more standing upright, the left of my two posterior trouser-buttons fell with a sharp metallic sound upon the floor. Here it paused for a moment, and then standing upon its circumference fol¬ lowed the rug in the direction of Mrs. Lorton. “ Dear me,” she said, “ I'm afraid I inter¬ rupted you. Is this your button? ” She stooped and picked it up. With a supreme effort, and despite the most poignant anguish, I regained command of myself and requested her to return it. Hardly had she done so, however, when there came a second metallic sound, and the comrade of the first button also rolled to her feet. “ Oh, dear," she said, “ isn’t that the other one ? What do you suppose will happen now ? ” 100 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. Only those who have experienced the extreme discomfort of the simultaneous loss of both posterior trouser-buttons, and the consequent approach to the back of the neck of the bifurca¬ tion-point of the braces, will be able to appre¬ ciate the enormous handicap under which Providence had now seen fit to place me. In the manual effort, too, which became instantly necessary to prevent the downward corruga¬ tion of my trousers, the first button slipped from my grasp and again bounced upon the parquet. “ Oh, I say,” said Mrs. Lorton, “ is this a new kind of game, or are you trying to put me at my ease ? ” With a silent but powerful petition, I drew myself as erect as the circumstances permitted. “It is neither a game,” I said, holding up my trousers, “ nor am I entering into personal relations with you. In fact it is my duty to make it quite clear to you that you are no sort of temptation to me.” Clad in some close-fitting fabric that exuded a most licentious scent, I could see at once that these well-chosen words had had a pro¬ found and immediate effect upon her. Turning her back on me, she emitted a hoarse gasp, and then collapsing upon the sofa, she lay there choking and convulsed in what appeared to 101 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. be an attack of acute hysteria. Startled but unmoved, and still sustaining my trousers, I gravely awaited her recovery. “ Oh dear/' she said, wiping her eyes, and then after looking at me again, she collapsed once more. Then she sat up, fanning herself with her handkerchief. “ You must really forgive me,” she said, “ but you looked so stern.” “ I should scarcely have thought,” I replied, inclining my head a little, “ that as a Xtian gentleman you could have expected me to look otherwise.” “ Oh no,” she said, “ no, of course not. Just suppose — oh dear, oh dear.” Then she wiped her eyes again. “ Wouldn’t you be better sitting down?” she asked. “ I thank you,” I said. “ But I prefer to stand.” She folded up her handkerchief and placed it in a small bag. “ Well, you know best,” she said. “ What do you want me to do ? ” “ I had imagined,” I said, “ that that had already been indicated to you by your fellow- accomplice, Mr. Septimus Lorton.” “ I say,” she replied, “you do use long words. Aren’t you considered to be frightfully clever? ” 102 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. I bowed again. “ In my own circle/ ’ I said, “ I am not con¬ sidered, I believe, to be unintelligent/' “ And so you want Chrys," she said, “ to give you a job? ’’ “ You are doubtless aware," I replied, “ of the alternative." “ You mean if he doesn’t," she said, “ you’ll tell him about me and Septimus." “As a Xtian gentleman," I said, “ it would become my duty." “ I wonder what he’d say," she said. “ When do you want to see him? ’’ “ The sooner the better," I said. “ I should prefer this afternoon." She rose to her feet. “ Then I’ll have to write him a note," she said. “ But it’ll never do to mention poor Septimus." She crossed to the writing table and began nibbling her pen. “ Of course it’s rather difficult," she said, “ to know what to tell him." I bowed again, a trifle grimly perhaps. “ The way of transgressors," I reminded her, “ is seldom easy." “ No, I suppose not," she said. “ How clever you are. Aren’t they frightfully proud of you at home? ’’ AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. 103 “ I trust/' I said, “ that I have deserved their affection/' “ Oh, I'm sure of it," she replied. “ Now let me see." She frowned for a moment and then began writing in a peculiarly large and childish hand. “ Of course I'll have to tell him," she said, “ that you were at Septimus's school, where you were frightfully struck with the Lorton Bible, but that you didn't like Septimus — that'll be sure to please him — and so you didn't ask him to help you." Her face began to brighten as she put this on paper, and I noticed that she was protruding the tip of her tongue. “ So you came here all by yourself, thinking he'd be at home, as it was the Easter holidays, and when you found he wasn't, you asked to see me instead, and I was most frightfully taken up with you." Here she made a blot, but observed that it didn't matter, and then pronounced each word as she slowly inscribed it. “ He seems a most lovable and religious young man, and I do hope you'll help him all you can. Cross, cross, cross — those are for kisses — your ever loving and devoted Nina." Then she handed me the letter. 104 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. “ There you are/' she said. “ Now you'11 know exactly what you'll have to tell him." Releasing one of my hands, I read it quickly but carefully and returned it to her without comment. “ Will it do ? " she said. “ I can only hope," I replied, “ that, for your own sake, madam, it will." She put it into an envelope and handed it back to me. “ Then I mustn't detain you," she said, “ any longer." Nor did I wish to stay. But I was now face to face with a situation of the utmost difficulty. Growingly repugnant as was this woman's presence to me, and singularly complete as had been my moral triumph, both my posterior trouser-buttons were still lying upon the floor. “ Oh, I see," she said, “ would you like to take them with you? I'll put them in an envelope and then you won't lose them." She accordingly did so, handing me the envelope, which I quickly took from her and placed in my pocket. “ You see, I’m afraid," she said, “ that I could hardly trust myself to — to actually sew them on." I bowed to her coldly, ignoring the split infinitive. AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. 105 “ Nor should I have seen fit,” I said, “ to concede you the opportunity/' Obviously shamed, she lowered her eyes, and to hide her confusion rang the bell, and I am glad to acknowledge that the entrance of the good-looking parlourmaid was not wholly un¬ welcome to me. Though but a menial, I had already discovered in her some of the most desirable female qualities, and I am happy to record that in a moment of acute anxiety, she played an humble but not unworthy part. Mrs. Lorton turned to her. “ Oh, Parker,” she said, “ poor Mr. Carp has had a most unfortunate accident.” Parker glanced at my hands. “ Yes, that's the trouble,” said Mrs. Lorton. “ Isn't it awkward for him ? ” Parker looked at me with genuine sympathy. “ Oh, poor gentleman,” she said, “ it must be.” “ You see,” said Mrs. Lorton, “ as a Xtian gentleman he's quite unable to let them go.” “ Oh quite,” said Parker, “ quite — except for a moment, perhaps, just to get a firmer hold.” Mrs. Lorton opened the door. “ So perhaps you'll help him,” she said, “ all you can.” Parker glanced at her inquiringly. “ I mean, put his stick under his arm and his hat on.” 100 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. “ Oh, gladly/' said Parker, “ ever so gladly." “ And escort him down the drive and open the front gate for him." Preceded by Parker, therefore, I left the room, and though it was perhaps unfortunate that there were two other servants in the hall, at Parker's request one of them brought my hat, which Parker herself put on my head, while the other inserted my walking-stick, handle foremost, beneath my left arm-pit. Thanking them graciously, but without undue familiarity, and once again preceded by Parker, I then moved down the drive, of which this gentle domestic opened the front gate for me. Nor was that the last service that she was privileged to render me, for acting upon a suggestion that she had obligingly volunteered, I visited a tailor in Enfield High Street to whom, as I soon discovered, she hoped to be betrothed. An admirable young man, he had not as yet made up his mind as to whether it would be discreet to grant her request, but he was happy to provide me with two entirely new buttons and personally to affix them to the brink of my trousers. Completely restored, then, in respect of my clothes, and physically recuperated with some excellent buns, I was enabled to assimilate the scenes of my return journey with an even AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. 107 keener appreciation, and to arrive at Pater¬ noster Row in the full confidence of final success. Not having a visiting-card, I had made up my mind to announce myself as a messenger from Mrs. Chrysostom; and, as it proved, this was the means of securing me an almost immediate audience. A somewhat short and extremely stout man with a heavily-coloured face and a drooping grey moustache, Mr. Chrysostom Lorton, whom I recognized from his photo¬ graph, might rather have been a general than a man of commerce; and I cannot say that a first inspection of him gave me entire satis¬ faction. Undoubtedly well-dressed, with a serpentine gold ring encasing the lower portion of each third finger, I was rather disagreeably affected both by his bushy and protruding eyebrows as well as by his attitude towards a slight mischance associated with the inception of our interview. For in presenting the enve¬ lope, with which I had assured him Mrs. Chrysostom had entrusted me, I unfortunately in the first place handed him the one in which she had placed my posterior trouser-buttons. For a moment he stared at them with bulging eyeballs, and then I regret to say that he apparently forgot himself. “ Good God,” he said, “ what the hell— crumph, crumph — what do you mean, sir? ” 108 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. Equally surprised, I have always been glad to remember that I was the first to recover my equanimity. Laughing merrily, I handed him the second envelope — in point of bestowal, of course, the first. “ Although you must not assume/' I said, “ that my natural mirth in any degree con¬ dones your involuntary blasphemy." “ Condones my what ? " he said. “ Crumph, crumph. But how the devil did she get hold of them ? " Still clinging to the original envelope, whose texture he obviously recognized, his globular eyes continued to be focussed on the two buttons before him. Briefly I explained to him the circumstances of their detachment. But for a considerable time he kept referring to the subject. “ I don't like it," he said, “ I don't like it at all. It's not seemly. It might have been very serious." Then a new suspicion darkened his coun¬ tenance. “ I suppose I may assume," he said, “ that you've had them replaced? " I bowed reassuringly. " By a tailor in Enfield," I said, “ who was incidentally a great admirer of you." His face cleared a little. 109 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. “ Eh, what ? ” he said. “ An admirer, you say? What was his name? ” I informed him and he nodded his head. “ Ah, yes, yes,” he said, “ a worthy young fellow.” By an auspicious chance too — if indeed it were one — a female clerk now entered the room, bearing in her hands a specimen copy of the nineteenth edition of the Bible for Schools. He glanced up from his wife’s letter. “ Yes, yes,” he said, “ that will interest you.” “ Nothing,” I replied, “ could have interested me more, unless perhaps a specimen of the twentieth.” Afterwards, as I shall show, my initial dis¬ trust of the man proved to have been only too well founded. But, as matters turned out on this particular afternoon, I left his office as a junior assistant. Placed under the charge of the show-room manager, I was to help this gentleman with his accounts and to act when necessary as a salesman of the firm’s congenial and Xtian literature. It was a supreme moment — it was perhaps, in a good many ways, the supremest moment of my life — and I did not hesitate, after some further buns, to make suitable acknowledgment of it in St. Paul’s Cathedral. Nor was the news with which I was confronted on my return to Angela Gardens 110 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. entirely able to counteract the deep satisfaction with which it. filled me. Nevertheless it was perhaps a timely reminder of the ever-present imminence of eternity, and it was certainly one that I have made a point of recalling in many subsequent moments of elation. For hardly had I opened the front gate when somebody touched me on the shoulder, and turning round, I observed Simeon Whey looking more preoccupied than I had ever seen him. His lips at any rate were moving rather con¬ vulsively and his laryngeal spasm was extremely marked. “ Kck," he said. “ It's Silas/' “ Dear me," I replied. “ What's the matter with him? " “ Kck," he repeated. “ He's dead." “ You don't say so? " I cried. “ What did he die of? " For some seconds he was unable to speak, obviously struggling with his vocal cords, and then with a blast of exceptional sadness he managed to expel the mournful details. Suffer¬ ing, as it appeared, from a temporary gastric distention, the amiable lad had gone to the medicine chest, where he had unfortunately mistaken the cyanide of potassium for the bicarbonate of soda. CHAPTER X Precautionary measures on entering commercial life. I join the N.S.L. and the S.P.S.D.T. A crying need in the con¬ duct of prayer-meetings. I join the A.D.S.U. Personal appearance of Ezekiel Stool. Personal appearance of his five sisters. Predicament of Ezekiel Stool on the fifth of November. A timely instance of presence of mind. I am invited to a meal at the Stools’ residence. A fore¬ shadowing of sinister events. It was a distressing end. Few things are more distressing, indeed, than the sudden demise of a potential clergyman. And for the first three or four days of my work in Paternoster Row my spirits were appreciably clouded. Nevertheless I was happy not only that I had embarked upon the career so satisfactorily chosen for me, but also in the consciousness that, but for my own perspicacity, Providence would have found it difficult to assist me. Moreover it was an additional comfort to me to reflect that, during my upward progress in the firm, I should have the obligatory if unwilling support of Mrs. Chrysostom Lorton. A word in the ear of her husband, and her infamy could be no longer concealed, and I could not suppose that, callous as she was, she would dare to expose herself to such an event. 112 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. Few young men, therefore, can have entered business life better equipped or so advantage¬ ously placed, and had I in consequence been carried away a little, it would scarcely perhaps have been unnatural. Very fortunately, how¬ ever, and thanks in a great degree to the character-forming incidents already related, I realized from the outset that I was now defin¬ itely committed to the most critical period of a young man’s life — namely, the years, so fatal to the vast majority, between his seventeenth and twenty-fourth birthdays. Then it is, alas, that intoxicated with the knowledge that he has become, in my father’s phrase, a marriage¬ able adult that he begins to resort for the first time to the tobacconist and the publican — to buy the cigarette that will so inevitably lure him into loose and licentious company, and the fermented liquor that will only too surely encase him in a drunkard’s coffin. Nor is that all. For it is in these same years, turning aside from the pleasures of home — from such innocent round games as Conceal the Thimble or the less familiar Up Jenkins, or from the happy singing round the family harmonium of such an humorous glee as Three Blind Mice — that he enters the Pit (so appropriately named) of some garish and degrading theatre. 113 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. It is a sorrowful spectacle. But happily for my own sake, I had already been so deeply saddened by it that I had long since resolved, when the necessity should arise, to take every possible precaution. No sooner, therefore, had I obtained my appointment than I hastened to enroll myself as a member of the Peckham Branch of the Non-Smokers' League as well as of the Kennington Division of the Society for the Prohibition of the Strong Drink Traffic. Congenial in every way, I not only discovered in these an enormous sphere for the exercise of my influence, but the membership of both societies conferred the privilege of wearing a small badge or bone medallion. A slightly convex and circular plaque to be pinned on the lapel of the wearer’s coat, the token of membership of the Non-Smokers’ League was about an inch in diameter. Of a pale cream colour, it was tastefully wreathed with dark blue lilies, symbolic of purity, the centre of it being occupied with the initials N.S.L. boldly imprinted in the same colours. No less decorative to the wearer than intri¬ guing to the beholder, a reply to the question so often put as to what the initials N.S.L. stood for frequently afforded a valuable oppor¬ tunity for soul-intercourse on the subject of tobacco. i 114 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. Nor was the medallion of the Society for the Prohibition of the Strong Drink Traffic either less attractive or efficient as an instigator of fruitful converse. Slightly larger — its diameter was an inch and a quarter — its ground-work was of an olive green, the letters S.P.S.D.T. richly emerging from this in an ingenious monogram of canary yellow. Into the work of these societies I now threw myself with all the vehemence at my command, and had soon forced myself into the innermost councils of the local branch of each. Meeting every fortnight in a neighbouring church hall, the Peckham Branch of the Non-Smokers' League did not confine itself merely to the organization of these central gatherings. Valu¬ able as they were in providing a pulpit for lectures upon nicotine-poisoning and its atten¬ dant evils, we rightly regarded the outside world as the main field of our endeavours. Provided with such strikingly headed pamphlets as A Gentleman or a Chimney ? or the even more dramatic and spiritually searching Your Soul or Your Cigar ? we would range the streets addressing obvious smokers, or station our¬ selves upon the pavement in the neighbour¬ hood of tobacconists' shops. In this way, though frequently required to endure verbal persecution, I am proud to believe that the AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. 115 work performed by us was both timely and enduring. Working on lines that were somewhat similar, the Kennington Division of the S.P.S.D.T. held monthly re-unions for the purpose of communally denouncing the use of alcohol ; and here we would discuss, over cups of tea and slices of plain but palatable cake, the results of our labours during the previous four weeks and our plans for the four immediately en¬ suing. Appreciably more dangerous, in that we deemed it our duty to distribute literature at the doors of Public Houses, whence there would emerge in depressingly large numbers combative men of considerable size, we never embarked upon this particular mission save in groups of four or five, each member being pro¬ vided with a police whistle in addition to his parcel of appropriate leaflets. Admirably illustrated, these bore such arrest¬ ing titles as Passing the Poison or From Beer to Bier , two of the most efficient being The Dram Drinker s Downfall , and Virtue versus Vertigo. That all these works, like those of the N.S.L., were published by the firm of Chrysostom Lorton was of course an additional and pleasur¬ able inducement to further their disposal in every way. And although as yet this could not result for me in any direct financial advantage, 116 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. it must be remembered that at this time there was still every prospect of its eventually doing so. To thousands of my readers, slacker in fibre, or not so resolute in the pursuit of goodness, it may well seem now as if these activities must have exhausted my spiritual capacity. But this was not the case, and conscious as I was — it would have been an affectation to deny it — of my very rapidly increasing ability for both religious and commercial leadership, I took every oppor¬ tunity of developing my unchallenged gift of self-expression. Thus, within a year of my business advent, I had not only addressed both the foregoing societies, but I had become a familiar and, I trust, welcome figure at every local prayer-meeting. I use the word welcome, because I had not only discerned in these gatherings an admirable vehicle of elocutionary progress, but I had quickly discovered in them a crying need that it was plainly my duty to supply. Familiar to every frequenter of the average prayer-meeting, whether Church of England or Nonconformist, this was nothing less than the presence of a gap- filler, especially in the earlier stages of the proceedings. Few can have failed, for example, to notice the pause that almost invariably takes place after the Chairman has delivered his own 117 AUGUSTUS CARP. ESQ. petition and invited the efforts of further supplicants. Painful in itself, in that it so often accentuates the respiratory difficulties of those present, how often is it broken, alas, by the simultaneous commencement of two or more separate competitors? Nor is that all. For, each realizing that he is too late, a disheartened silence generally ensues, only to be broken perhaps by a second neck-to-neck effort on the part of all the previous starters that abortively collapses again on some such unfortunate phrase as “Oh dear, oh Lord/' It was here then that I descried, and at once began to work, an almost virgin field, never allowing an instant to elapse after the right to supplicate had been declared general. Indeed on many occasions I filled the subsequent gaps also, and at one particularly reluctant gathering, I can well remember, in less than an hour, offering a dozen full-length petitions. That I soon had rivals goes without saying. Who, in such a position, could have escaped them ? But once started, I allowed no second petitioner to deflect or abbreviate my entreaties. Perhaps the work, however, in which I was most interested was that of the Anti-Dramatic and Saltatory 1 Union founded by Ezekiel Stool, the son of Abraham Stool, the inventor and 1 Appertaining to dancing. 118 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. proprietor of Stool’s Adult Gripe Water. Prob¬ ably the most persistent and unflinching oppon¬ ent that the theatre and dancing saloon have ever known, he was then some twenty-six years of age and of a very remarkable and beautiful character. Indeed all that he lacked of these two qualities in his actual physical appearance seemed to have been concentrated with addi¬ tional force in his spiritual personality. No taller than myself, and weighing considerably less, he had suffered all his life from an inherent dread of shaving, and the greater portion of his face was in consequence obliterated by a profuse but gentle growth of hair. His voice too, owing to some developmental defect, had only partially broken; and indeed his father Abraham (afterwards removed to an asylum) had on more than one occasion attempted to sacrifice him, under the mistaken impression that he was some sort of animal that would be suitable as a burnt offering. Regarded as a character, however, and when he had fully assured himself that he was not in the presence of a theatre-goer or dancer, it would have been difficult to imagine a more affectionate or deeply trustful companion ; 1 and many an hour we spent together combating the drama, both in Central London and the 1 It was far otherwise, alas, in later years. 119 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. suburbs. Well provided with money, thanks to the sales of the Gripe Water— an excellent remedy to which I have frequently had recourse — he had himself composed and caused to be printed several extremely powerful leaflets. Of these perhaps the best were The Chorus Girl's Catastrophe and Did Wy cliff e Waltz ? and these we would distribute in large numbers among the degenerate pleasure-seekers standing outside theatres. Purchasing seats, too, we would ourselves from time to time enter these buildings, rising in our places when the curtain was drawn up and audibly rebuking the per¬ formers. Needless to say, having registered our protest, we would then immediately leave the premises, not always immune from the coarse objurgations of obviously interested minions. Nor were we less vigorous in our onslaught upon the equally prevalent sin of dancing, either personally attending or stationing delegates at the entrances to halls or private houses, and endeavouring if possible by individual appeals to warn or deter would-be malefactors. An uphill task, it was not for us to say to how great an extent we may have succeeded, but I can remember at least twelve persons, male and female, who promised to consider what we had pointed out to them. 120 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. Deeply as I appreciated, however, the oppor¬ tunity of furthering this valuable and congenial work, I had not as yet realized the ultimate object that an inscrutable Providence had in view, or that in Ezekiel Stool I had already been handed the compass that was destined to lead my steps to matrimony. Such was the case, however, little as I then dreamed it, and even less, if such a thing were possible, was I attracted, on a first acquaintance, to any of his five sisters. Simply divided into twins and triplets, these were all younger than Ezekiel himself, the triplets being then twenty-four, and the twins three years younger. None of them was married, and indeed, as regarded the triplets, this was scarcely perhaps to be won¬ dered at. For though they had been interest¬ ingly named by their father as Faith, Hope, and Charity, they were plain girls, deeply marked by the smallpox, and of rather less than the average intelligence. Nor indeed were the twins, Tact and Understanding, at all remark¬ able for personal beauty, and the toes of one of them, as I was afterwards to discover, were most unfortunately webbed. On the other hand, they were kindly, domestic creatures. All five of them could play the piano. And the heart of each, as they have frequently told me, was profoundly stirred by my first visit. 121 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. Little as I shared, however, though I could not fail to perceive, the cardiac exaltation of these five females, I have always looked back to that first visit with a very considerable degree of pleasure, and not the less so because of the preliminary service that I was able to render their brother Ezekiel. Indeed it was this that led to an invitation to share the evening meal at the Stools' house, a substantial residence with a large garden, about five minutes' walk from Camberwell Green. A November dusk, some eighteen months or so after my entrance into commercial life, I had forgotten that it was the anniversary of the attempt of Guy Fawkes to destroy the Upper Chamber of our Legislature, and my thoughts were engaged upon other matters as I began to walk home from the omnibus stopping- place. I had hardly walked a hundred yards, however, when my attention was suddenly attracted to a somewhat vociferous group of boys, in the midst of whom, to my surprise and anxiety, I saw my friend Ezekiel Stool. For a moment I was at a loss both as how to proceed and the possible reason for the conclave. But a moment later I discovered that the position was no less disturbing than grotesque. Doubt¬ less intoxicated with the memories of the day, these ignorant and turbulent youths had 122 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. apparently discerned in my friend Ezekiel a resemblance to the conspirator of 1605. Nay, they had gone further. They had professed to perceive in him an actual reincarnation of the original miscreant, and this in spite of the fact that Ezekiel had repeatedly explained to them that he had no knowledge of pyrotechnics. “ Believe me,” he had said, “ I am neither the man you mention, nor do I resemble any authentic portrait of him. Nor have I placed explosives under anybody’s chamber either in London or the Provinces.” Despite his denials, however, supported as they were by references to prominent local residents, the group of vociferators was quickly growing both in numbers and excitement, and several suggestions were being audibly made that he should be exterminated by fire. It was a moment for action, and I took it. Fortun¬ ately my police whistle was in my pocket. And in the next instant I was blowing blast upon blast to the utmost capacity of my lung power. The effect was immediate. For scarcely had the boys dispersed when three or four constables arrived on the scene, all of them breathless from the act of running, but carrying their truncheons in their hands. Being breathless too, I could only point at Ezekiel, and for the first moment they misunderstood me, rapidly 123 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. surrounding him, as he leaned against a lamp- post, and lifting their truncheons above their heads. Once again therefore it was a moment for action, and once again I took it. Throwing myself in front of him, I shouted to them to forbear, and then very briefly I explained what had happened. Unfortunately, as I have said, the boys had already dispersed. But then, as I pointed out to them, that had been my object, and the fact that this had taken place before their arrival was no reflection upon their courage. I cannot record, however, that their reception of this news was either Xtian or even courteous, and it was a very great relief both to myself and Ezekiel when these powerful pro¬ fessionals at last went away. Nevertheless, as Ezekiel said, I had probably twice saved his life, and during the evening meal, to which he at once invited me, both his parents and his five sisters repeatedly expressed their satis¬ faction. Mr. Abraham Stool, indeed, who had not then been segregated, but who was already under the impression that he was the Hebrew patriarch, several times insisted upon my approaching him and placing my hand under his left thigh, after which he would offer me, in addition to Mrs. Stool, a varying number of rams and goats. Needless to say, I declined to accept these, 124 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. and a week or two later, as I have already indicated, it was deemed advisable, owing to his tendency to sacrifice, to place him in other and remoter surroundings. But it was a happy evening, during which, as I shall always remem¬ ber, Ezekiel Stool expressed his regret that my father and myself were not fellow-worshippers with them at St. Nicholas, Newington Butts. Satisfied as we were, however, with St. James- the-Least-of-All, where my father had now become senior sidesman, we had seen no reason, as I was obliged to point out to him, for again transferring our worship ; and little did I dream that even as I was speaking those sinister events were already shaping themselves that were ultimately to unite us — their only redeeming outcome — in this new and closer bond. CHAPTER XI Design for my grandfather’s tomb. Death and interment of Mrs. Emily Smith and the aunt that had stood with my mother’s mother at the bottom of the stairs. Effect upon my father’s health. Alexander Carkeek and his sons. Arrival home from the Stools. First tidings of the new lectern. My father’s interview with the vicar. Curious instance of transposition of consonants. My father rehearses his denunciation. Arrival of Simeon Whey. My father repeats his denunciation. Permanently impaired as had been my father’s health by the ordeal referred to in Chapter VIII he had not permitted this, as I have said, to interfere with his duties as a sidesman; and there were still occasions upon which he would exhibit all his old-time fire and determination. Thus when my mother’s parents had been destroyed by a tram accident about a month after the decease of Silas Whey, it was he who had arranged the funeral, chosen the hymns, and designed the monument by which they were to be commemorated. The provision busi¬ ness having declined somewhat, the chief factor in the design had necessarily been one of economy, and my father had therefore confined himself to a broken column some three inches in diameter and a foot high. Insufficient to 125 126 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. accommodate their full names, their initials had been tastefully engraved upon it, the surface of the grave being sprinkled with flints that would require no subsequent upkeep. In conjunction with Mr. Balfour Whey too, it was he who had selected a house for my mother's eight sisters, small but sufficient and in a remote part of Wales, where they would be able to husband their meagre income. Bitterly opposed as the eight sisters had been both to living together and leaving Walworth, my father had overcome them by the sheer power of his torrential eloquence and person¬ ality. Surrounded by strangers, as he had irresistibly reminded them, most of whom were unacquainted with the English language, fifteen miles from a railway station and three and a half from the nearest village, they would have neither the occasion nor the opportunity to dissipate their substance in convivial extra¬ vagance, while the precipitous roads, by which alone the house that he had chosen for them could be approached, would give them an appetite for the extremely simple fare which would be all that their means would allow them to purchase. To Wales they had gone, therefore, and though he continued to receive letters from them, couched in terms of the basest ingratitude, he neither replied to these 127 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. nor permitted them to modify his kindly consideration for my mother. Nor had he been less adequate in dealing with the circumstances that had arisen, a few months later, in connection with the demises of Mrs. Emily Smith and the aunt that had stood with my mother’s mother at the foot of the stairs. Both these ladies, who had been living on Post Office annuities, had unhappily died after sharing a sausage, strongly suspected, though never actually proved, of harbouring the bacillus of botulism. Thanks to my father’s efforts, however, seconded by Mr. Balfour Whey, the firm by whom the sausage had been manufactured consented without prejudice to pay a sum of money sufficient to provide for the ladies’ interment. I have said sufficient, but after my father had reimbursed himself and paid the expenses of Mr. Whey, he was once more faced, as in the case of my grand¬ parents, with an acute necessity for economy. Burying them in a double coffin, however, of his own design — a design for which he after¬ wards obtained the patent — he succeeded not only in keeping the undertaker’s bill within the balance at his disposal but in providing a surplus with which he afterwards obtained a small iron slab containing their names and ages. Nor was that all, for with the pound 128 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. or two that was over he bought a third-class ticket to Aberdeen, where he had obtained a situation for Mrs. Emily Smith's grand-daughter as housemaid in a home for Xtian workers. After every such exhibition of pristine vigour, however, my father experienced an acute re¬ action, and for many weeks would become a martyr not only to neurasthenic indigestion, but to digestive neurasthenia accompanied by flatulence of the severest order. For months on end, indeed, my mother would be obliged to sit by his bedside in case he should wake up and require abdominal kneading, and few were the nights upon which she had not in addition to go downstairs and make him some cocoa. But he would never allow himself to be daunted. His breakfast the next morning would be as hearty as usual. And he was never deterred by even the most obstinate inflation from the performance of a moral or religious duty. Despite his courage, however, he was leaning on me with ever-increasing emphasis, and I am proud to recall that, in what was so soon to prove the heaviest ordeal of his life, I was able to render him very material and indeed essential assistance. Such then was the position when I parted with the Stools, after the evening meal that I have just recorded. And it was rather with 129 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. their cries of thanks and gentle admiration resounding through the chill November night than with any sense of impending trouble that I turned my footsteps towards home. Indeed, as I buttoned up my overcoat and drew my scarf over my mouth, I had every reason to feel content both on my own account and my father's, whose health for some weeks had been slowly improving. For not only had my mother's parents been safely interred and her eight sisters satisfactorily disposed of, her two aunts competently buried, and Emily Smith junior despatched to Aberdeen, but my father, as I have indicated, had finally established himself as the senior sidesman of St. James- the-Least-of-All. Conferring the right of leading the other sidesmen up the central aisle at the end of the collection, this was the more gratifying since my father had only obtained it as the result of a prolonged and determined struggle, in which his chief opponent had been a retired fishmonger, known as Alexander Carkeek. A northern Caledonian of the most offensive type, this gentleman, as he liked to consider himself, was now a sleeping partner in the firm of Carkeek and Carkeek, fishmongers and poul¬ terers in the Kennington Road, and had long been suspected, both by my father and myself, K 130 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. of a secret addiction to alcohol. Of middle height — he was perhaps taller than my father by an inch and three-quarters or two inches — his abdominal circumference was equally ex¬ tensive and his bullet-shaped face even more highly coloured. Unlike my father, however, he had signally failed in retaining the bulk of his hair, and even his two sons, Corkran and Cosmo, were showing signs of becoming bald. Sidesmen like their father, they were only less aggressive, and during the long contest for supremacy, they had seized every opportunity of detaining or distracting my father while their own got into position at the head of the line. Indeed on one occasion, when my father had paused for a moment to adjust a door¬ handle half-way up the aisle, they had deliber¬ ately encouraged their father to push himself in front and thereby head the procession. Naturally resenting this, my father had im¬ mediately plunged forward, with the painful result that the two of them had become wedged and had been unable, owing to their respective girths, either to advance or retreat. Needless to say, in the struggle that ensued, my father had been the first to break away and had arrived at the chancel half an abdomen ahead of his pertinacious rival. Ultimately, as I have said, however, thanks AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. 131 to repeated protests and an impassioned inter¬ view with the vicar, my father had definitely secured for himself the right of precedence, though the Car keeks still remained sidesmen. Nor was that all. For it was now generally known that the vicar's churchwarden was about to retire, and there could be little doubt, as my father had several times observed to me, as to the probable successor to this great position. It was with a comparatively light heart therefore that I opened the front door, hung up my hat and coat and folded my scarf, and entered the parlour ready to describe to my father the events that had occupied my even¬ ing; and my distress can be imagined when I at once perceived him to be in a state of the acutest physical congestion. Facially suffused to an alarming extent, the hairs of his mous¬ tache were visibly projecting, and I naturally assumed at first that he must have become the subject of an exceptional degree of intestinal discomfort. On closer inspection, however, I observed that this could scarcely be the case since his waistcoat buttons were still fastened, and for a brief second I had a fearful appre¬ hension that he was annoyed with myself. He did in fact ask me rather abruptly the reason for my absence from the evening meal. But his expression lightened a little when I 132 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. told him where I had been and of the services rendered by me to Ezekiel Stool. “ Yes, it's a good family/' he said, “ a very good family, and there's money in it as well as religion." The next moment, however, his face had resumed its congestion, and as I leaned back while my mother unlaced my boots, it became increasingly evident to me that I was in the presence of a spiritual crisis of the gravest kind. Nay, even then, I remember, I had a sudden presentiment that here was a situation of no common significance, and I signalled to my mother to be as rapid as possible in bringing me my slippers and leaving us alone. Then I took a deep breath and, leaning forward a little, gently touched my father’s knee. “ Can I not help you? " I said. My father stared at me. For perhaps a minute his lips moved convulsively. Then in a strangled voice he uttered a single word, followed a little later by fourteen other words. “ Carkeek," he said. “ It's that fellow Car- keek. He’s been and presented the church with a lectern." For a moment I was utterly dumbfounded. “ A lectern? " I asked. My father nodded. 133 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. “ Made of brass,” he said, “ in the image of a bird.” “ Of a bird ? ” I cried. “ What sort of bird ? ” “ Of an eagle,” said my father, “ looking towards the left.” “ Towards the left? ” I said. “ But where’s it to stand? ” “ At the top of the aisle,” said my father, “ just below the chancel steps.” “ But, dear father,” I cried, “ we already have a lectern,” and indeed this was literally the case, since the cavity or enclosure adjoining the choir seats, from which the vicar or his curate read the service, was also provided with a separate book-rest for the purpose of delivering the lessons. “ Yes, I know,” said my father, “ but that wouldn’t deter Carkeek.” " But surely,” I cried, “ the vicar hasn’t accepted it ? ” “ He has not only accepted it,” said my father, “ but the thing’s in position.” “ In position,” I said, “ and looking to the left? ” My father nodded again. “ Just west of south,” he said. “ But good heavens,” I cried, “ I say it in all reverence, then it must be staring right into our pew.” 134 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. “ So it is,” said my father, “ and not only that, the brazen hell-bird's protruding its tongue." The room darkened a little. “ But not intentionally?" I asked. “ You don't mean to say that it's protruding its tongue intentionally? " My father gulped once or twice. Then he bowed his head. “ Yes, I do," he said, “ and I say it deliber¬ ately." Then he rose to his feet and stood looking down at me. “ And that's not the worst," he said, “ not by a long way." “ Not the worst? " I cried. “ What do you mean ? " My father swayed a little, but managed to recover himself. “ I mean this," he said. “ I mean that Alexander Carkeek is trying to get himself made churchwarden." For a moment I was stunned. My father sat heavily down again. “ But good God," I cried, “ that amounts to simony." “ I know," said my father. “ That's what I've told Carkeek." “ Then you've seen him ? " I said. 135 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. My father looked at me grimly. “ I've not only seen him/' he answered, “ but I’ve told him what Fve thought of him. And IVe explicitly informed him that if he's made a churchwarden, I shall take proceedings against him in the ecclesiastical courts." My father leaned back closing his eyes, and I had never admired him more, perhaps, than at that moment. “ And the vicar," I said. “ Have you spoken to the vicar? " “ I was obliged to warn him," said my father, “ in identical terms." “You could do no less," I said. “ But what about the bird itself? " “ I regret to say," said my father, “ that he professed to admire it." I stared at him aghast. “ Professed to admire it ? " I gasped. “ The vicar that we have supported all these years ? " My father covered his eyes for a moment. “ Even so," he said. “ As I had to point out to him, I was seriously shaken." “ But surely you protested," I cried. “ For seventy-five minutes," said my father. “ But couldn't he perceive," I said, “ that it was a direct insult to us ? " My father moved his hand a little. “ He claimed that it was not so. He said 136 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. that the majority of these birds looked towards the left.” “ But not with their tongues out,” I cried. “ He seemed to think so. He said it was symbolic of inward joy.” “ But good heavens,” I said, “ I repeat it with all reverence, does he expect us to worship under conditions like that ? ” “I’m sorry to say,” said my father, “ that he had appeared to contemplate it prior to my insistence on its immediate removal.” My heart gave a great leap. “ Then it’s being taken down ? ” I cried. But my father stared at me with bulging eyes. My heart fell back again. “ I don’t know,” he said. “ That’s why I’m preparing my denunciation.” It was a solemn moment. It was perhaps the solemnest moment that either of us had been called upon to experience, and even as I spoke, I felt that we were drawing towards the threshold of one of the greatest issues of our terrestrial life. “ Then he refused? ” I said. “ Let me be quite fair,” said my father. “ He rather temporized than actually refused.” I could not help smiling a little sardonically. “ The distinction is a fine one,” I said. “ I suppose he adduced some grounds ? ” 137 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. My father breathed heavily. “ He was insolent enough to remind me,” he said, “ that it was eight o’clock on Saturday evening and that the bird in question, which had only just been set up, weighed approxi¬ mately a quarter of a ton. He also suggested that the congregation ought to have an oppor¬ tunity of inspecting it.” “ The congregation ? ” I cried. “ But what has the congregation to do with it ? It’s not putting its tongue out at the congregation.” My father inclined his head. “ Precisely what I told him,” he said, “ but he merely fell back upon his previous argument, that the exposure of the tongue, if indeed it were a tongue, was merely significant of good tidings.” “ I see,” I said. “ So you gave him an ultimatum? ” “ I was compelled to,” said my father. “ There was no other course. Either it must be removed, I told him, before to-morrow morning or I should publicly denounce it during morning service.” “ And what did he say? ” I asked. My father made a contemptuous gesture. “ Oh, you know what he is,” he replied, “ a weed before the rind.” “ You mean a reed,” I said. 138 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. “ What did I say? ” said my father. “ You said a weed/' I said. “ I said a weed? ” said my father. “ A weed before the wind/' I said. “ I mean the rind.” “The rind? ” said my father. “ But that's wrong.” “ Yes. But that's what you said,” I said. “ A weed before the rind ? ” said my father. “Yes, a transposition,” I explained, “ of the initial consonants.” “ A transposition? ” enquired my father. “ Yes, an error in enunciation,” I said, “ such as frequently takes place under emotional stress.” “ But, I don’t understand,” said my father. “ You meant a reed before the wind,” I said. “ Well, of course,” said my father. “ That's what I said.” “ No, you said a weed,” I said, “ a weed before the rind.” “ But how can a weed be before the rind? ” said my father. “ But you didn't mean that,” I said. “ You meant a reed before the wind.” “ Well, that's what he is,” said my father. “ That's just what I say. That's why he implored me not to make a denunciation.” “ But of course you will,” I said. 139 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. My father nodded. “ Immediately after the collection/' said my father, “ and before the blessing." I looked at the clock. It was a quarter past ten. In an hour and three-quarters the sabbath would be upon us. There was not much time. I glanced at my father anxiously. “ How far have you got ? " I asked. “ About half-way," he said. Then he rose to his feet again and crossed to the harmonium. “ Ring for the cocoa," he said. I sprang to the bell. But just as I reached it my mother entered, bearing two cups of the sustaining fluid. Signalling to her to withdraw, he lifted one of the cups and drained its contents at a single gulp. “ Now, listen," he said, and in a low but rising voice, he began a denunciation that I shall never forget. Impeccable in logic, succinct in argument, perfect in phrasing and faultlessly delivered, I have never, I think, listened to so moving an utterance as the initial moiety of my father's denunciation. Beginning, as I have^said, in a low voice, yet one that was crystal clear in its penetrating capacity, for the first five minutes or so my father refused to allow himself the adventitious aid of a single gesture. It was the 140 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. gathering of the storm, as it were, the mar¬ shalling of the hosts of heaven, composed but relentless, above the brazen image. Then he paused for a moment, indicating the aspidistra that stood upon a tripod in the corner of the room. “ Now, say that’s the bird,” he said, and suddenly like a flash of lightning, his right index finger was quivering upon the air. In¬ voluntarily I leapt round and stared at the aspidistra, and then like the deafening down- burst of a tornado, my father expanded his chest, threw back his head, and opened the full floodgates of his passion. Pallid and cowering, I crept behind the armchair, while syllable after syllable rent the night, and the delirious har¬ monium leapt and crashed down again beneath the palpitant thunder of his blows. Then almost as suddenly he stopped. “ That’s as far as I’ve got,” he said. I crept from my shelter. “ Is there to be much more? ” I asked. “ About five minutes’ calm,” he said, “ and then the final, culminating climax.” He wiped his forehead. “ I’ve got it roughed out,” he said, “ if you’d like to hear it before it’s rounded off.” I signified my assent, and he proceeded. But 141 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. indeed it already seemed to me to be practically flawless, while the ultimate crescendo, prepared as I had believed myself, left me literally prostrate and fighting for breath. My father, on the other hand, although he was perspiring freely, seemed to have become endowed with a new lease of life, and was able single-handed to replace the harmonium which had fallen upon its face during his closing sentence. Then there came a low knock on the parlour window. It was nearly eleven; we stared at each other startled; and it was with considerable relief that we perceived the new-comer to be no more important than Simeon Whey. Yet his errand was a kind one, although it was a con¬ siderable time before he was sufficiently master of himself to explain his presence, while we had already foreseen and prepared for the tidings that had brought the admirable youth to our window. Hearing from his father, whom my father had already consulted, of the very great trouble with which we were threatened, he had put on his hat and coat, wrapped his scarf round his neck, and immediately hurried to St. James-the- Least-of-All. There, with infinite cunning and hardly less devotion, he had managed to conceal himself behind a tombstone, where he had awaited for nearly an hour and a half the 142 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. arrival of workmen to remove the lectern. None had come, however, and somewhere about half-past ten, he had reluctantly abandoned his vigil and, faint with hunger, hurried to Angela Gardens to apprise us of its result. “ Kck," he said, when we had given him a biscuit, “ Urn afraid it'll be a case of denuncia¬ tion." My father nodded grimly. “ So I had anticipated," he said. “ In fact I had just been denouncing when you knocked at the window." “ Kck," said Simeon — now a theological student — “ I should like to have heard you." My father glanced at me, and I inclined my head. “ I'll do it again," he said, and he returned to the harmonium. Nor was he less powerful than on the first occasion, and I shall never forget his effect on Simeon Whey. Beginning as before in a low voice, yet one that was crystal clear in its penetrative capacity, for the first five minutes or so he refused to allow himself the adven¬ titious aid of a single gesture. It was the gathering of the storm, as it were, the marshal¬ ling of the hosts of heaven, composed but relentless, above the brazen image. Then he paused for a moment, again indicating the 143 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. aspidistra that stood upon a tripod in the corner of the room. “ Now, say that's the bird," he said, and suddenly, like a flash of lightning, his right index finger was quivering upon the air. In¬ voluntarily Simeon leapt round and stared at the aspidistra, and then like the deafening downburst of a tornado, my father expanded his chest, threw back his head, and opened the full floodgates of his passion. Pallid and cower¬ ing, Simeon crept behind the armchair while syllable after syllable rent the night, and the delirious harmonium leapt and crashed down again beneath the palpitant thunder of my father's blows. Then for five minutes there was a comparative calm, while Simeon Whey crept from his shelter, until the ultimate cres¬ cendo stretched him helpless on the carpet, blue in the face, and fighting for his breath. Then he staggered to his feet and sank into the arm¬ chair, while my father once more picked up the harmonium. “ Oh, kck," he said, “ kck." It was all that the poor youth was able to utter. CHAPTER XII Breakfast finds us calm but grave. My mother is allowed to accompany us to church. My father’s clothing and general demeanour. Remark of Simeon Whey on my father’s hat. First impressions of the new lectern. Unmistakable evidences of guilt. The vicar’s feeble apologia. A devilish device and its disastrous results. I race with Corkran for half-a-crown. My poor father is three times dropped. Impeccable in logic, as I have already said, succinct in argument, and perfect in phrasing, it is with the profoundest regret that I have been obliged to omit from these pages the actual words of my father’s denunciation ; and I should like to make it quite clear that for the inevitable disappointment my publishers alone must bear the blame. Bitterly as I have protested, however, they have replied to every argument with sordid references to the cost of production, and this volume has in conse¬ quence been rushed through the press deprived of my poor father’s terrible indictment.1 Nor is this the less deplorable because at the last 1 It is my full intention, however, to pursue this matter further, and any reader desirous of signing an appeal should instantly communicate with me at Wilhelmina, Nassington Park Gardens, Hornsey. *44 145 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. moment my father himself was prohibited from uttering it, owing to an intervention of Providence as little to have been expected as it has always appeared to me inexplicable. Indeed, had we foreseen it, I doubt if either my father or myself would have been able to retain his sanity, and we should certainly not have met, as we did the next morning, in a .comparatively cheerful frame of mind. Yet this was the case, and although, as each of us remarked, the expression of the other was unwontedly grave, it was a relief to us both to learn that neither of us had spent a bad, or even indifferent, night. Considering the circumstances, indeed, we had slept remarkably well, and in view of the tremendous task that now certainly awaited us, each of us was scrupu¬ lous to fortify his person with as large and nourishing a meal as possible. As we sang the morning hymn, too, I was glad to perceive that my father's voice was in exceptional con¬ dition, while the sunshine and soft air augured well for a particularly large congregation. “ The more, the better," said my father, and he even went so far as to permit the attend¬ ance of my mother, thereby excusing her from her usual task of preparing our midday meal or dinner. “ We'll have something cold," he said, L 146 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. “ middle day, and she shall give us a good hot meal after evening service.” With myself on his right, then, and my mother on his left, we left the house at 10.45, and I have never, I think, seen my father so meticulously dressed as on this stern but necessary occasion. Wearing his longest frock- coat, a double-breasted gentian waistcoat, fault¬ lessly creased trousers, and the glossiest of brown boots, his collar was encircled with a cream-coloured velvet tie, held in position by a single Cape garnet. By a happy circum¬ stance, too, his bowler hat had only been pur¬ chased the week before ; and indeed, as Simeon whispered to me, it might rather have been that of some French aristocrat mounting the tumbril than of a Xtian sidesman of the United Kingdom on his way to denounce a lectern. Nor did he hesitate to lift it when we met Mr. and Mrs. Carkeek, accompanied by Cosmo and Corkran, although I have seen nothing more distant than the inclination of the head with which he signified consciousness of their presence. As Simeon said to me, “ Your father may be a Xtian, but he never forgets that he's a gentle¬ man." We were now on the brink, however, of the church porch — a couple of steps and the effigy would be in sight — and deeply as we had 147 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. impressed upon each other the necessity for self-command, I could not help staggering a little and leaning against Simeon. My father staggered too, leaning against Mr. Balfour Whey, while my mother staggered against Mrs. Meatson, the obliging wife of Mr. Meatson, the editor of the parish magazine. Then with a supreme effort we recovered our equilibria, and in the next moment — albeit at a distance — we were facing an image that, for malignant effrontery, was surely unparalleled in Church history. I say facing, for although its actual counten¬ ance was turned, as I have said, towards the left, its malevolent bosom as well as its right eye were directly focussed upon our persons. Nor can I trust myself, even now, to describe its effect upon us as we moved up the aisle, although every detail of its repulsive appear¬ ance was indelibly graved upon my memory. Suffice it to say, therefore, that it gave the general impression of a vulture rather than an eagle; that it appeared to have robbed an arsenal of a medium-sized cannon-ball, upon which it now stood poised on the summit of a mast; and that its outspread wings had been blas¬ phemously converted into a support for the Holy Scriptures. Nor was that all, for at each corner of the pedestal, in which the mast had 148 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. been embedded, was an additional claw with projecting talons of undisguised ferocity — the total effect from the bottom of the aisle being that of a six-clawed monster about to expectorate. Repellent as was its appearance, however, even at a distance, it was not until we drew nearer to it up the central aisle that I suddenly became aware in it of a quite unforeseen and infinitely sinister significance. For now, as we approached our pew, which was the front one on the right, it was perfectly clear that its eyes had been so fashioned as to be capable of regard¬ ing us, either separately or in unison, with an almost unbelievable degree of venom. But they could do more, for what was my horror, just as we were about to turn into our pew, to per¬ ceive that my father, whose colour had visibly deepened, was still holding on towards the chan¬ cel. Nay, to be exact, he was still holding on towards the very image that he had come to condemn, with his two eyes fixed and slowly converging upon the baleful eyeball of the bird itself. For a moment I stood spellbound. What was he about to do? And then, as the pew rocked beneath my feet, I suddenly realized that my poor father had been foully and deliber¬ ately hypnotized. It was a critical instant. Another couple of steps, and one of two things must inevitably 149 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. have happened. He would either have dashed his forehead against the bird’s bosom, or his abdomen would have collided with the mast. Nor was the danger less real because it was as yet unperceived either by my mother or the rest of the congregation. With an enormous effort, however, I succeeded in rallying myself and seizing and compressing my father’s right elbow, steering him half-conscious into his usual place, where he immediately fell forward upon his knees. Then I bent down. “ It was the bird’s eye,” I said. “ Whatever you do, avoid the bird’s eye,” and ample was my reward in the immensely powerful squeeze which was the only thanks he was able to bestow. But the danger was not over, for, now that we were in our pew, we were being permanently impinged upon by the bird’s full visage, and I saw at once that we should be taxed to the uttermost to sustain its gaze until the end of the service. Regarded from this aspect, how¬ ever, in which its competing tongue masked the malignity of its eyes, its expression was less menacing than insolent, albeit to an almost intolerable extent. And it was obviously in the exposed eye, solitary and unchallenged, with which it had followed us up the aisle, that its concentrated malice had found the weapon most effective for its purpose. Tern- 150 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. porarily released, therefore, from the acutest personal anxiety, I was at last in a position to observe my fellow-worshippers, and I would that I could record even some semblance of resentment at the loathsome object with which they had been confronted. Upon no face, however, could I see anything inscribed beyond an unintelligent curiosity, while upon many I could not fail to observe an even more lament¬ able admiration. Indeed I could hear actual whispers, indicative of approval, such as “ Did you ever, now? " or “ Isn't it handsome? '' while some put such queries to one another as, “ What do you suppose it cost ? '' “ Whoever could have paid for it ? '' and "Hasn't it got a polish? " Nor have I seen anything, I think, quite so nauseating to a sensitive Xtian stomach as the scarcely- concealed triumph so smugly discernible upon the faces of the four Carkeeks. My only reas¬ surance, in fact, lay in the reflection that my father's denunciation had yet to come; that in so large an assembly there must surely be one or two to whom the bird's true character must have been obvious; and that the vicar and his curate, who were now nervously enter¬ ing, had not finally committed themselves. Then the organ ceased playing, the vicar, who was plucking at his surplice, hastily glanced at my father, and the curate, whom I had AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. 151 never seen paler, tremblingly embarked upon the service. Pale as was the curate, however, and staccato as was his utterance, he was the very embodi¬ ment of self-confidence compared with the vicar when the latter first approached the lectern under the steadfast gaze of my dear father; and I have seldom seen the consciousness of guilt take such visible toll of an alleged Xtian clergyman as when this weak prelate staggered from his corner and clung tottering to Carkeek’s eagle. Nor had I perceived until then — or not so fully — the profound wisdom that had been my father’s in concealing from these men the exact moment at which he intended to make his protest. For they were thus proceeding in the devastating knowledge that at any syllable they might be cut short, and publicly arraigned before the whole congregation for their base act of betrayal. In spite of my anxiety, therefore, I could scarcely suppress a smile, and I was glad to observe, as I glanced at my father, that he was once more in complete command both of himself and the situation. Indeed I had never heard him in such stupendous voice as during the hymn that preceded the sermon, and it was obvious that the vicar conceived this to be the prelude to the actual deliverance of the indictment. It was at any rate some moments before he was 152 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. able to speak, and I have never, I think, heard a more pitiable noise than the quavering tones in which he uttered the words of Jeremiah, “ Mine heritage is unto me as a speckled bird.” 1 Spoken by the prophet, he said, under con¬ ditions of considerable stress — and who had known more stress than the prophet Jeremiah? — it might also be rendered, as the margin so beautifully reminded us, as a bird having talons. Mine heritage is unto me as a bird having talons — here he paused for a moment, avoiding my father's eye — or might he not say, perhaps, using the plural, our heritage is a bird having talons? For in this great gift, this unique gift, that few of us could have failed, he thought, to have noticed, we were all par¬ ticipators, even the most degraded of us, thanks to the generosity of Mr. Car keek. Yes, it was indeed our heritage, ours , a speckled bird, a bird having talons. And who could say that the care-stricken prophet had not foreseen this beautiful lectern? For it was a beautiful lectern — few, he thought, could deny this — this speckled bird, this bird having talons. And yet it might well be that, owing to its very unexpectedness, it should give rise to differing opinions. Nay, he would go further. He would hope that it might, for they were all there, he trowed, in a double 1 Jeremiah xii. 9. AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. 153 capacity — as human beings, overflowing with gratitude, but also as trustees for the church’s furniture. Yes, they were trustees. They must never forget that. That was a distinction that he would have them remember. They were not only human beings, but they were churchmen and trustees — church-beings, trustees and human men — yea, and women also, churchees and trust-men ; furniture-women, church-trusts and humanees. They were all those things, and they would remember the old saying, so many men, so many opinions. Thus it might be argued — and very reasonably argued — that the present reading-desk was sufficient, and that the very magnificence of this noble bird might a little detract from its holy purpose. As for that, the congregation must judge. He would welcome the opinion of each one of them. There was not one of them whose opinion he would not welcome, even the lowliest and most sinful. For though our heritage had come unto us as a speckled bird, as a bird having talons, it did not necessarily follow that it was our Xtian duty to take it up and enter into it. Many great men, as they were doubtless aware, had given up heritages of considerable value, and who should say that they had not been actuated by the highest and most holy considera¬ tions ? But others like Esau had lived to regret 154 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. it. It was a matter for the congregation to decide, united though they would be in their undying appreciation of the splendid muni¬ ficence of Mr. Carkeek. A speckled bird, a bird having talons — let them not lightly discard their heritage. But let them not, on the other hand, too lightly accept it as a bird of no moment. Then, with obvious relief, and indeed a certain amount of complacence, he hurriedly backed down the pulpit steps, just as the curate, leaping to his feet, gave out the number of the closing hymn. But my father was not perturbed. Through¬ out the whole service, indeed, he had sat there expressionless as a sphinx, but none the less terrible, because his unwinking eyes had given no hint of their ultimate purpose. Then he rose to his feet, carrying his offertory plate, and it was only in the very deliberateness with which he did so that the most discerning might have gathered a hint, perhaps, of the stupendous judgment about to fall from him. Nor did he allow the task, which was now so imminent, to interfere with his usual custom of joining in the hymn to his uttermost capacity as he moved from pew to pew collecting the offertory. But the great moment was now close at hand, and I could not forbear turning for a moment in my place and glancing down the aisle at the procession of sidesmen, already formed and wait- 155 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. ing my father’s signal. For from now onwards even I myself was a little uncertain of my father’s intentions, although I did not apprehend that he would begin his denunciation before the last of the sidesmen had yielded up his plate. Then I glanced at the vicar, who had come to the chancel steps ; at the curate, who was plucking at his stole; and finally at the bird, with its brazen eye fixed as before on my approaching father. For the hymn had come to an end now and the procession was in motion, with my father in the van carrying his plate, followed by Alexander Carkeek, Mr. Balfour Whey, Mr. Meat son, Cosmo and Corkran. Slowly they proceeded, with Mr. Carkeek, as usual, chafing at the necessity of having to march second, but obviously intoxicated with pride and self- satisfaction as the people in the pews craned their heads to look at him. So disgusting indeed did I find the spectacle that I was obliged for some seconds to close my eyes, and it was during this brief interval that there happened the awful thing that was finally to shatter my father’s health. For when I opened them again, pale and petrified, it was once more to behold my father caught and transfixed and stertorously advancing into the same ingenious and devilish trap. But now it was too late, though I gave a great cry, and yet that cry, perhaps, may 156 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. have modified the disaster. For at the last instant, as though he had half-regained conscious¬ ness, my father swerved a little to the right, albeit only to stumble and fall at full length over the south-west talons of the pedestal. And yet even then the sidesman in him remained uppermost. For though a half-crown had been jerked from his plate, he never let this go until he had safely grounded it at the very feet of the vicar. Nay, he rose higher. For observing that the half-crown was hurrying towards a grating at the end of the transept, and per¬ ceiving that Corkran Carkeek, obeying his family's instinct, had suddenly leapt forward and was hastening after it, he bade me try and secure it before the young Caledonian had succeeded in capturing it for his own box. “ But your poor self? " I cried. “ Never mind me," he said, “ or hell get his foot on that half-crown." And it was then, and only then, that he yielded to Nature with shriek after shriek of unutterable pain. It was an astounding moment. For there were thus two spectacles competing for the attention of the congregation, most of whom had now risen and were standing on their seats in the natural desire to observe events. For in the first place there was my father, writhing on his abdomen at the foot of the lectern, and 157 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. in the second there were Corkran and myself engaged in the bitterest of races to save and recapture the half-crown. Nor did I win. For though I managed to overtake him, he got his boot upon it at the last moment, just as I had stooped and was about to lift it up at the very brink of the grating. Choking as I was, however, and in spite of his exceptional height, I was able to look him full in the collar and assure him that from that moment I should cease to number him amongst even the most distant of my acquaintances. Then, dumb with wrath and blinded with tears, I managed to swing round upon my heels just as the remain¬ ing sidesmen, assisted by the vicar and curate, succeeded in raising my poor father. But the ordeal was not over. Nay, it had hardly begun. For not only did they drop him in the south transept, but they dropped him a second time in the side aisle, and again upon the threshold of the vestry. Whether this was intentional will never be known, or not until that Day when all shall be made clear. But I cannot help mentioning that the Carkeeks were among the bearers, and that I had never seen the curate looking so cheerful. CHAPTER XIII Description of the injuries sustained by my father. A supremely difficult medical problem. Legal assistance of Mr. Balfour Whey. Infamous decisions and public comments. A quiet church and obliging clergy. Sur¬ prising character-growth of Ezekiel. A distasteful pro¬ position generously put forward. Disgusting behaviour of a show-room manager. Such then was the incident that not only, as I have said, finally destroyed my father’s health, but was also destined, after several weeks of the profoundest physical inconveni¬ ence, and almost as many months of the acutest legal anxiety, to deprive him (and ultimately myself) of the greater portion of his savings. For it was obvious from the outset that the matter had to be challenged — and indeed we had so pledged ourselves before the ambulance bore him from the vestry — at whatever cost to ourselves and our friends, and before as many tribunals as might prove necessary; and it has often seemed to me that it was only this sacred obligation that preserved my father from immediate extinction. For not only was it discovered by the three doctors, who were 158 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. 159 immediately summoned to attend upon him, that his right knee was displaying evidences of incipient synovitis, but the three falls, to which he had been subjected between the lectern and the vestry, had resulted in extremely severe contusions of both his larger gluteal muscles. The problem before the physicians was thus an exceptionally difficult one. For while the condition of his knee demanded that he should lie upon his back, that of his gluteal muscles was even more imperative in demanding a position precisely opposed to this. After a considerable argument, therefore, it was finally decided that for the first week or ten days the position to be assumed should be a face- downwards one, with a protective cage over the contused muscles. By this means any painful pressure that might have been exerted by the bedclothes was avoided — an additional protec¬ tion being afforded by two discs of lint, previ¬ ously spread with a cooling ointment. For the purposes of nourishment, which was to be ample and sustaining, my father was then to be drawn towards the end of the bed, his head being allowed to project to a sufficient distance to permit of nutriment being inserted from below. Owing to his weight, this, of course, necessitated the erection of a pulley with straps passing under his arm-pits, a return pulley with 160 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. straps passing round his ankles coming into play at the end of each meal. Even with such assistance, however, my poor father's plight remained an exceedingly deplorable one; and it is scarcely to be wondered at that, from time to time, he betrayed a marked irritability. Prostrate as he was, however, and already conscious that his career as a sidesman was definitely over, he flung himself almost im¬ mediately, and with all the energy left to him, into the necessary preliminaries of the approaching litigation. Day after day, even while still lying on his abdomen, he held pro¬ longed interviews with Mr. Balfour Whey, who most considerately lay beneath my father's bed, parallel with the sufferer and looking up into his face. Whether, in the world's history, an action of such importance — for it was fully reported in most of the daily newspapers — was ever arranged in similar circumstances I do not know, although I doubt it. But I have cer¬ tainly never seen a spectacle more solemn and pathetic than that of these two earnest and horizontal men vertically discussing, across the end of the bedstead, the possible methods of legal procedure. Nor was either to blame for the iniquitous judgments, into the details of which I do not propose to enter, but which had the effect, as I AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. 161 have already stated, of seriously impoverishing my poor father. For from the outset Mr. Balfour Whey, although sharing to the full in my father’s indignation, was explicit as to the difficulty that would certainly accrue in trans¬ lating this into a legal victory. Indeed the only vehicle under which proceedings could possibly be instituted was the original and extremely crude Employers’ Liability Act,1 and this upon the doubtful assumption of the applicability of Sub-section (i) of Section i, and subject to the further acceptance of the Carkeek lectern as a portion of the plant of St. James-the-Least-of- All. Under this earlier Act, too, the status of the vicar as employer and that of his sidesmen as employes was far less substantiable in law that it would have been under the Workmen’s Compensation Act ; and deeply as I have always regretted, on general grounds, the in¬ clusion of this latter measure in our legal machinery, I have equally deplored that it was not then available to assist my poor father in his heroic crusade. From the beginning, therefore, it was an unequal contest, with the dice of evasion loaded against my father, and all the forces of idolatry, spite, and ambition arrayed to defeat the course of justice. Thus, despite the arguments 1 43 and 44 Vic. cap 42 (1880). M 162 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. — and I have never listened to longer or more powerful ones — of the celebrated counsel that my father employed ; despite the photographs — and I have never seen any more heart-rending — of the contused areas of my father’s person; and despite the irrepressible applause from Simeon and myself that greeted his every reply in the witness-box, the case was not only decided against him with costs, on a series of the most palpable legal quibbles, but an appeal to a higher court met with a similarly scandalous and financially devastating result. Obviously primed, too, by the Carkeeks — although our detectives were unable to prove this — the verdict in each case became the subject of a malicious article in the Camberwell Observer, my father once more having to bear the total costs of the prosecutions that immediately ensued. Nor did a printed appeal to the congregation of St. James-the-Least-of-All bring my poor father more than eight shillings, although the cost of its printing and subsequent postage had amounted to no less than three pounds. More¬ over — and even now the pen shakes in my hand as I force it to write the shameful words — not only was the lectern retained in the church (where it may probably be seen at this moment), but within less than a year Cosmo and Corkran Carkeek were the sons of the vicar’s church- 163 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. warden. It was perhaps the bitterest stab of the whole squalid conspiracy. But my father was then too enfeebled for active resistance. “ Let it be enough/' he wrote to Alexander Carkeek, “ until at a Greater Bar you shall stand condemned, that you know, and I know, and so does your vicar, that you have committed simony in your heart." So ended an episode with which I have dealt thus fully — at what a cost can well be imagined — partly because, as I have said, the contemporary newspaper accounts of it were either misleading or deliberately spiteful, but chiefly because it was the means adopted by Providence of uniting us still more closely with the Stools. That this was an end possible of achievement otherwise, I have never disguised my private opinion. But since it was to lead to my own ultimate matrimony, I have always considered it best to suspend judgment ; and I cannot but feel convinced that my readers will share the relief with which I now begin to approach this distant event. For it was still distant. Let there be no mistake about that. And in the particular form in which it was about to be adumbrated, I ought not to conceal, perhaps, that for several years I found it extremely distasteful. Never¬ theless it came about, and even when Ezekiel 164 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. first suggested it, deeply repugnant though the idea seemed to me, I could not help recognizing and suitably acknowledging the generosity with which it had been put forward. “ Dear Augustus/' he said, “ each of my sisters will receive an equal portion of my father's estate, and if it would be any help to you, I should be only too glad to give you one of them in marriage." This was on the Sunday evening, I remember, the sixth after we had lost our action against the Camberwell Observer , and the seventeenth after my father had been mulcted in costs by the infamous judgment of the Court of Appeal — upon which we had decided, after careful investigation, to transfer our worship to St. Nicholas, Newington Butts. A quiet edifice, devoid of a lectern, yet within a few yards of the tram-lines, it had seemed to us both, although it had various drawbacks, as suitable a receptacle as we should be likely to find for the very modified degree of worship of which my father now remained capable. “ After what has happened," he said, “ it is of course a subject in which I can scarcely be expected to take much further interest. But the church appears clean and its clergy seem obliging, if not particularly intelligent." Making it quite clear, therefore, that he would 165 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. be entirely unable to accept any position of responsibility, and that his attendances, even as an ordinary worshipper, would almost certainly be precarious, my father had added his name to its list of clients, to which I had been very happy to subscribe my own. This we had done verbally, at the close of the morning service, to the obvious satisfaction of the vicar and his curate, Ezekiel having been absent, as his sisters had informed me, owing to a mild attack of gastro-enteritis. At the evening ser¬ vice, however, he was present as usual, and it was upon our way home together after its close that I told him of the decision to which my father and I had come, and of which we had already apprised the clergy. Transported with delight, he shook me by the hand, the hairs upon his face sparkling with happy tears, and I shall never forget the emotion with which he expressed his hope that this would complete the intimacy between us. “ Drawn together/' he said, “ in the A.D.S.U. and by your memorable salvation of me on the fifth of November, and further united in the misfortunes that have befallen the fathers of us both, surely this must be the link that shall finally unite us in a firm and irrevocable friendship." Deeply moved, I was unable to reply for a 166 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. moment. But presently, in a response of some duration, I contrived to signify my general agreement with the aspirations that he had enunciated. He then invited me to share a second evening meal with himself, his mother and his five sisters, and it was during the progress of this that I first became aware of a new development of his character. Hitherto, as I have said, of an extremely gentle and even yielding disposition, he had now assumed, with a dignity and completeness that both surprised and delighted me, not only the headship of the table but the full direction of the household. Thus when Faith ventured upon a remark that, on a week-day, might have been considered humorous, he at once reminded her that it was the Sabbath and gently but firmly demanded an apology; while a look from his eye was sufficient to quell Hope who inadvertently “ hiccuped ” during the pronouncement of grace. I was glad to observe, too, that these facially unattractive girls all remained seated until he had indicated that they might rise, and that together with their mother they instantly left the room when he inclined his head toward the door. So effective, indeed, was his assumption of his father’s duties that I could not refrain from congratulating him, and it was during the 167 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. conversation that naturally followed that he supplied me with details of the family finances. Thus I learned from him that, prior to his admission to the Home of Rest in which he was now detained, his father had been per¬ suaded by his legal advisers to retire from the management of the Adult Gripe Water ; and that the right to manufacture this, together with the existing plant, had then been sold to a limited company. As the sole proprietor, Mr. Abraham Stool had received a considerable sum of money, half of this having been paid to him in cash and the remainder in shares of the new company. The cash had then been invested, upon his solicitor's advice, in colonial and Government securities, and a will drawn up of which Ezekiel was kind enough to give me the exact particulars. Then he paused for a moment, and it was then, leaning towards me with the utmost affection, that he uttered the words of which, as I have already recorded, I could not but recognize the good feeling. “ And so you see, dear Augustus, each of my sisters will receive an equal portion of my father's estate, and if it would be any help to you, I should be only too glad to give you one of them in marriage." Admirably meant, however, as was this offer, and obviously one of considerable value, few 168 AUGUSTUS CARP, ESQ. could have blamed me, I think, for the instinctive shudder with which I was obliged at first to postpone an answer. Nor was he one of them. “ In fact I never supposed/' he said, “ that you could immediately bring yourself to accept. And I fully appreciate that, had I been in your position, my gesture of repulsion would have been equally violent. But at tho same time I thought it might be useful to you to know that they would be there to fall back upon." I stared at him. “ To fall back upon ? " I asked. Colouring deeply, he held out his hand. “ I was speaking metaphorically," he said. “ I beg your pardon." “ Conceded," I replied. “ But it was an unpleasant idea." “ And an ill-chosen phrase," he said. “ All that I meant was that they would be there for you to select from." “ Do you mean all of them ? " I asked. He signified his assent. “ Subject to the Great Reaper," he said, “ I think that I can promise that." Then for five minutes we sat in silence, and then, extending my hand to him, I rose to my feet. “ Ezekiel," I said, “ I am not unobliged to you, and although I could never view such a '^Dzebief Q)toot \ drauJrj frory a pcrrlrait~ once v? tf>e jDoaseasion off, a'T'